British man receives world’s first bionic eye implant for macular degeneration

 

A British man has become the first person in the world to receive a bionic eye implant that corrects for age-related macular degeneration (AMD)—the most common cause of vision loss in adults.

The implant was a success: previously, the patient had no central vision at all; now, he has low-resolution central vision.

 

Ray Flynn is the first case of a human having combined natural and artificial sight

The operation was carried out at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital in June 2015; the recipient of the implant was Ray Flynn, aged 80.

 

The macula is at the back of the eye, in the central region of the retina.
It is responsible for all of your high-resolution central vision—that is, when you gaze directly at something, it is the visual receptors in the macula that turn the light that reaches them into vision.

With AMD, detritus (called drusen) slowly builds up between the vascular layer of the eye (the choroid) and the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE)—the layer that rods and cones are attached to.

 If too much drusen builds up, blood flow to the RPE is reduced enough that the rods and cones wither

AMD happens quite slowly, but eventually it can result in a complete loss of central vision, which makes it hard to recognise faces, read books, interact with computers, and so on. AMD is common amongst older people, and as our average life expectancy continues to increase, so does the number of people with AMD: about 500,000 people have it in the UK, and between 2 and 3 million people have it in the US.

Paulo Stanga—the lead surgeon for Flynn's implant—says that "it's going better than expected ... Mr Flynn's progress is truly remarkable, he is seeing the outline of people and objects very effectively. I think this could be the beginning of a new era for patients with sight loss

The bionic eye implant - called the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System (Argus II) - was fitted as part of an ongoing study to assess its efficacy in patients with dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) - a condition that accounts for 80-90% of all AMD cases.