Clinical Advances of Stem Cell Treatment for Macula Degeneration
By Drs.Like Wu, Xiaojuan Wang, Bo Cheng
Wu Medical Center, Bejing, China
Macula lutea is located in the rear area of the eyes. It is a very important area of the eyes where photo receptor cells exist. The main function of the macula is central vision, to distinguish the small things and for color. A person's daily life activities such as reading, driving and facial recognition depend on the intact macula function (please see the anatomy). If we take the human eyes as a camera, the macula lutea would be the central sensitive exposure area, like camera film. In general, the macula collect the imaging stimulation from the central visual field and send signals to the occipital lobe cortex of the brain via the optic nerve pathway to build the visual information. Once the macula area has a deficit, then the normal imaging information can not be collected successfully. Maybe it will not affect the visual ability very much at an early stage, but with the further progression of macula degeneration, the patient will have symptoms of central vision loss, blurred vision, black shadows, metamorphopsia etc. It can even lead to complete central vision loss with further deterioration. Macula degeneration has been recognized as the main type of disease which can lead to blindness. Till now, there has been no cure for macula degeneration in the world.
The main reason for macula degeneration is still not very clear, most doctors believe it is the result of hereditary factors and environmental factors. The most important risk factor is age and the chances of contracting it rises with increasing age. Macula degeneration mainly occurs in people more than 55 years old. Other factors which relate to macula degeneration are:
1. Hereditary factors: A patient's chance of suffering from MD will increase if there are MD patients among their family members.
2. Ethnicity: Tests have shown that the MD rate of Caucasians is higher than others.
3. Smoking: The proportional MD rate of smokers is twice that of non-smoking people.
The age-related MD is characterized by chronic macula degeneration changes. In general, it has been divided into dry (atrophy) and wet (exudation) macula degeneration. There are more than 85-90% of cases that belong to dry macula degeneration, and the wet MD only had 10-15%. Stargardt’s disease is a special type of MD which mainly happens in teenagers and it is an autosomal recessive inheritance disease.
The disease usually combines with retinal degeneration or dystrophy in the last stage, and that will affect the neuroepithelial cells and RPE cells which accelerates the visual ability decline. The cone cells and rod cells become damaged and lose their normal function and those cells cannot be regenerated. Doctors had not been able to find an efficient method to prevent the visual ability loss and the degenerative change because those damaged cells could not be regenerated. The disease would progress gradually and the damaged area would spread. With the development of regenerative medicine technology, doctors in Wu Medical Center applied 2 kinds of stem cells to treat the MD patients and achieved very satisfactory clinical outcomes. The neural stem cells can evolve into healthy optic nerve cells and the mesenchymal stem cells can change into functional RPE cells via our elaborate cell regulation control. The implanted stem cells can supplement the amount of functional optic neurons and cells within the retina and macula area of those MD patients. This will prevent the degenerative nature of the disease effectively. The treatment restores part of the patient's eyesight and their life quality improves as a result.
From many years of clinical treatment and research, Wu Medical Center now owns a systematic and effective treatment method to deal with macula degeneration. We work on replacement of the photoreceptor cells in the macula area including the cone cells and rod cells. The repair of RPE cells and necessary clinical support technology such as improving the choroidal vessels blood circulation helps the new cells survive and work. The cells target the macula area, restart and activate the new photoreceptor cells function, etc. From the clinical data, a patient's visual ability showed good improvement and the development of the disease had been effectively prevented. It is a new technology which is a breakthrough that has overturned the previous concept that macula degeneration can not be treated.
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