New sight for the blind thanks to retina chip

New retina chip Hope for the blind

New sight for the blind thanks to implanted retina chip: The new chip allows the blind to see
An electronic chip under the retina makes blind people see again. Tübingen researchers led by the specialist Eberhart Zrenner have transplanted a photodiode chip under the retina of three blind patients in a pilot study. The microchip replaces destroyed sensory cells so that all three study participants were able to perceive light in certain shapes and patterns.

Microchip under the retina
For 15 years, researchers at the University of Tübingen have been researching on a retinal implant that blind people return their eyesight. The method tested for the first time in humans in the pilot study, they evaluated in the publication of the results in the journal „Proceedings often the Royal Society B“ as a complete success. With the aid of the microchip implanted under the retina, the blind study participants were able to perceive light pulses and thus recognize the various objects on a table.

Blind patient could read his name
At the Finnish patient Miikka, the microchip was placed directly under the „yellow spot“, the area of ​​the human retina with the largest density of visual cells, and shows the greatest success here. Not only was he able to locate, distinguish and describe simple objects such as apples, bananas, forks and spoons on a table, he was also able to easily orientate himself in a room, he could differentiate between seven different shades of gray Reading the dial of a watch, recognizing 16 letters and reading its own name. This is a tremendous success from the medical perspective, because Miikka suffers from the hereditary disease retinitis pigmentosa by the rods and cones on the retina die off and a retinal degeneration is triggered. In the final stage of a disease patients completely disappear.

Hereditary disease retinitis pigmentosa
According to experts, around 3 million people worldwide are affected by retinitis pigmentosa. According to the professional association of ophthalmologists, 30,000 to 40,000 suffer from hereditary retinal disease in Germany. The first symptoms usually appear in adolescence or middle age and vision deteriorates slowly, sometimes over the course of decades, more and more, until those affected become completely blind. Eleven percent of all blind people suffer from the genetic disease retinitis pigmentosa. Healing options do not exist yet, but the now tested procedure with the implanted microchip raises hope.

Retina chip generates 1,500 pixels
The researchers in Tübingen are trying to replace the destroyed cells with technology. The three-by-three-millimeter-thick and extremely thin electronic chip is implanted directly behind the retina, takes over the function of the pins and rods and converts light incident on the retina of the eye into electrical impulses, which are amplified by the chip as stimuli on the retina. The power supply takes place via a battery located behind the ear, which is connected by a running along the skin thin cable with the chip. The microchip itself consists of 1,500 photodiodes, which generate light pulses with the help of an electric amplifier 1,500 pixels on the retina, which are then transmitted as in the healthy eye of the optic nerve to the visual center of the brain.

The chip took over the function of dead pins and stings so well that „the patients (...) sunflowers, contrails in the sky, the girlfriend's teeth when she smiled“ could recognize, stressed the study director Eberhart Zrenner opposite „VIP News“. However, as the basics for processing the optic nerve information in the brain must already be present, the microchip is only suitable for patients who could once see. Anyone who is blind from birth will not be helped by the new procedure.

"Follow-up study" started: approval possibly already in 2011
So far, eleven chip transplants of this kind have been carried out by the experts around Eberhart Zrenner. Where the chip has been removed so far always after three months of running time, since this was not designed for continuous operation and possible long-term consequences were feared. Since May 2010, however, a Europe-wide follow-up study with a revised system that is completely under the skin and has already been implanted four patients. Those affected should wear the device for at least two years, at best for an indefinite period. Twenty-five patients will be screened in the follow-up study, with Walter Wrobel, CEO of the company „Retina Implant“, which manufactures the implant, assumes that the results will be available by 2011 and that the procedure will be approved by the end of 2011.

70,000 - 80,000 euros treatment costs
To assess the long-term success of retinal chip transplantation, the researchers will continue to monitor and investigate all successfully treated patients. Because the new microchip method could also help in other eye diseases such as chorioideremia and constrike dystrophy in the opinion of the experts. „We can show that visual function in people with retinal damage can be restored as much as is necessary for everyday life, "Zrenner emphasized, concluding with the question of the cost of such a treatment, which Walter Wrobel estimates to be 70,000 to 80,000 euros stated, with such treatment costs for most from their own pocket are hardly affordable and has not yet been clarified whether the health insurance to take over „Retina Implant“-CEO: „Every year, 2,000 people in Germany die from the implants“, only conditionally, as long as the health insurance companies are not clearly committed to a cost assumption. (fp, 03.11.2010)

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