To all members,
Yesterday I read in the paper an article which is interesting for this forum,
because the research it talks about runs parrallel to what is done in fetal
transplant in Parkinsonpatients. Not only the fact of transplantation is the
same, but the cells who defect from their task so mysteriously are pigmented
dopamine producing cells too. The text below is a mere translation in my best
English. It is from "de Volkskrant" 27-11
FETUS GIVES LIGHT TO BLINDS
In the future it might be possible to treat the hereditary disease retinitis
pigmentosa by transplantation of light-sensitive cells from the retinas of
aborted fetuses. At a congress in Washington the American researcher Manuel del
Cerro from the Rochester University (New York) lectured last week about the
first results of this treatment. During the last two years Del Cerro and
collegues have transplanted fotoreceptors of fetuses in 8 retinitis pigmentosa
patients. In 4 patients the transplanted cells took hold. One of them could see
the world again as through a keyhole. The other three could see a hand moving
right before the treated eye. The other patients did not benefit from the
treatment.
The diseaese "rinitis pigmentosa" causes a slowly ongoing impairment of vision.
A growing number of light sensitive cells, rods, in the retina is destroyed. It
ends in complete blindness. For a transplant about a million retinacells of a
fetus are planted in the eye with microsurgical techniques. According to Del
Cerro it is not reasonable to expect the vision of this patients can ever be
completely restored with these techniques. But if the modest results that are
now manifest can last long enough, it is the first possible treatment ever for
this, till now, hopeless disease.
Ida Kamphuis
Holland
