London, August 11: A ray of hope for the blind! A new type of eyedrop has shown encouraging signs for treatment of the world’s most common causes of blindness — glaucoma.
Scientists in Italy, who’ve come up with the eyedrops, have claimed the solution would well fight glaucoma, caused by the pressure inside the eyes and known as the “sneak thief of sight” because of its gradual effects.
In fact, according to them, tests have showed the formula, which contains a special “nerve growth factor”, can prevent cells from dying and even improve vision.
In preliminary trials, the technique has proved successful in improving vision in three patients whose eyes have been beset by a build-up in pressure that has previously been impossible to stop.
The patients, two men and a woman in their 60s and 70s, had advanced glaucoma, some for 20 years or more.
After three months of treatment, all patients showed improvements in visual sharpness and ability to detect contrast. Two of the three showed improved visual fields, while the visual field stabilised for the third.
And, the researchers have claimed, the improvements remain even three months after the treatments were finished.
Lead researcher Dr Stefano Bonini of University of Rome was quoted by the British media as saying: “This is the first time that an improvement in visual function is observed in patients with advanced optic nerve damage.”
The tests in people were tried after success in treating rats with the eye drops containing a protein known as nerve growth factor, the researchers said.
Experts have welcomed the findings published in the ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Science’ journal.
Dr David J. Calkins, Director of research at the Vanderbilt Eye Institute said the work “deserves a good, hard look,” because patients with disease as advanced as the patients in this study had been thought to be beyond repair.
–Agencies