title: New hopes and strategies for the treatment of severe ocular surface disease.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Severe ocular surface diseases (OSDs) are some of the most challenging entities facing the clinician today. This article aims to describe the recent advances and current development of ocular surface reconstruction from both basic science and clinical aspects.
  
  
  RESULTS
  To date, many candidate corneal epithelial stem or progenitor cell markers for culture grafts have been reported worldwide. Several groups have reported the long-term results of cultivated corneal and oral mucosal epithelial transplantation in severe OSD. In their attempt to further develop the system of ocular surface reconstruction, several groups recently reported using cells obtained from a novel origin, cell substrates, and safer culture procedures.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Autologous cultivated corneal limbal epithelial transplantation has been shown to be a well tolerated and promising treatment for patients with severe OSD. A newly developed transplantation technique using tissue-engineered epidermal adult stem cells, immature dental pulp stem cells, and hair follicle bulge-derived stem cells was reportedly successful for the reconstruction of corneal epithelium in an animal model of severe OSD. The recombinant human cross-linked collagen scaffold and a Food and Drug Administration-approved contact lens are also promising new techniques for successfully achieving ocular surface reconstruction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan. tnakamur@koto.kpu-m.ac.jp
authors.forename: Takahiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nakamura
authors.forename: Shigeru
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kinoshita
mesh_terms: D017690:Cell Transplantation; D003316:Corneal Diseases / Q000601:surgery*; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000637:transplantation*; D006801:Humans; D016850:Limbus Corneae / Q000166:cytology*; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D023822:Tissue Engineering; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous