Stem cell therapy trial reverses "irreversible" damage to cornea

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 7:47 AM UTC

Post by javiramos » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 11:01 AM UTC

Post by AnthonBerg » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 11:13 AM UTC

javiramos wrote: post #4

Can’t comment on the technical quality of this paper but wanted to highlight that the research was funded by the NIH which our government is currently chaotically gutting. Link to paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56461-1.pdf

Post by Chance-Device » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 11:52 AM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #5

nashashmi wrote: post #3

> The new study … investigated a new treatment called cultivated autologous limbal epithelial cells (CALEC). This involves removing stem cells from a patient’s uninjured eye, growing their population in the lab for a few weeks, then surgically transplanting them into the injured eye. 14 patients tested. 79% reported healing in 12 months.

Note here that "complete success" doesn't seem to necessarily mean recovery of vision, just some kinds of testing of corneal health. The article vaguely says that "most" patients had some improvement of vision. I couldn't quickly find discussion of this in the actual study, but the study claims success in proving safety and suggests further investigation is necessary to show therapeutic efficacy.

Post by momento » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 12:06 PM UTC

Chance-Device wrote: post #8

aetherson wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note here that "complete success" doesn't seem to necessarily mean recovery of vision, just some kinds of testing of corneal health. The article vaguely says that "most" patients had some improvement of vision. I couldn't quickly find discussion of this in the actual study, but the study claims success in proving safety and suggests further investigation is necessary to show therapeutic efficacy.

This is an important point. It looks like they didn’t directly make any measurements of vision, just biological markers of corneal health. That doesn’t mean that vision didn’t improve. It’s just a bit odd that if it did, they wouldn’t have quantified it and added that to this paper.