An Implant Made From Pig Skin Restored 19 People's Eyesight in Recent Trial

A group of scientists say they have found a way to create implants from pig skin. The implants were shown to restore eyesight for up to two years in a small clinical trial published this month. The technology may one day provide a mass-produced alternative to human corneas for people with these conditions.

The eye's outer covering is called the cornea. It helps us see by focusing the light that comes through it. Corneas can heal from mild injuries, but more serious injuries and diseases can cause permanent damage to our eyes. According to the World Health Organization, around 4% of the world's population suffer from vision related problems caused by injured corneas.

A transplant of a healthy eye is the only effective treatment for people with severely damaged eyes. Human corneas are in short supply, especially for people living in poorer countries, because they have to be used very soon after they have been donated. Researchers are looking for other ways to replace or support damaged corneas. One such approach is the implant created by researchers from Linkping University in Sweden, who have founded a company to further develop it.

The team gave their implant to 20 patients from India and Iran with advanced keratoconus, a condition where the cornea starts to thin out. Fourteen people who were legally blind were no longer able to see because of the improvements to their eyesight. The patients who needed further corrective treatment were now able to wear contact lens again. Two years after the gains were stable.

The results show that it is possible to develop a biomaterial that meets all the criteria for being used as human implants, which can be mass-produced and stored up to two years.

Existing artificial corneas and similar treatments are available. The researchers think the implant should have some advantages over the other options. Many of these treatments rely on donated corneas to reduce the risk of rejection by the body, while the team's implant uses relatively cheap biosynthetic material derived from pig skin. The same basic ingredient of the cornea is used to create a thin but durable layer of mostlyCollagen. In the current study, the patients were only given eight weeks of transplant drugs to ensure acceptance by the body, as opposed to the year or more of medication typically given to those with corneas.