A patient at Moorfields Eye Hospital has been able to detect signals in her previously blind left eye because of a new implant currently undergoing clinical trials.
The 2mm wide microchip, which researchers hope could partially restore vision for patients with geographic atrophy (GA), was inserted underneath the centre of a patient’s retina via trapdoor surgery.
Special glasses fitted with a video camera connected to a small waist-worn computer then enable the chip to capture a visual scene projected by the glasses and transmit it to the computer.
An artificial intelligence programme processes the visual information and instructs the glasses to focus on what it takes to be the object of focus, before the glasses project this image through the eye to the chip via infrared.
Researchers explained that the infrared signal passed through the retinal and optical cells into the brain, where it was interpreted as if it were natural vision.
The chip has been trialled in patients who lost their vision in one eye due to GA, which is progressive and currently untreatable. In the over-80 age group, 6.7% of people are affected by the disease.
Mahi Muqit, consultant vitreoretinal surgeon at Moorfields, said: ‘This ground-breaking device offers the hope of restoration of sight to people suffering vision loss due to dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
‘The success of this operation, and the evidence gathered through this clinical trial study, will provide the evidence to determine the true potential of this treatment.’
The first patient to benefit from the treatment in the UK was an 88-year-old mother of seven, with eight grandchildren. She said: 'Losing the sight in my left eye through dry AMD has stopped me from doing the things I love, like gardening, playing indoor bowls and painting with watercolours.'