Surgeons Successfully Perform World's First Eye Transplant

New York – Science and medical equipment are better than before. In recent days, surgeons successfully performed the world's first transplant of an entire human eye, an extraordinary addition to a face transplant – although it's far too soon to know if the man will ever see through his new left eye. 

The recipient of the eye was Aaron James, a 46-year-old military veteran from Arkansas who survived a work-related high-voltage electrical accident that destroyed the left side of his face, his nose, his mouth, and his left eye."Doctors never thought this would work," 

In the six months since the surgery, performed during a partial face transplant, the grafted eye has shown important signs of health, including well-functioning blood vessels and a promising-looking retina, according to the surgical team at NYU Langone Health.

“The mere fact that we transplanted an eye is a huge step forward, something that for centuries has been thought about, but it's never been performed,” said Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, who led the team.

Until now, doctors have only been able to transplant the cornea, the clear front layer of the eye.

At first, doctors had only planned to insert the eyeball as part of a face transplant for cosmetic reasons, the doctor said. 

He continued: "If some form of vision restoration occurred, that would be a wonderful thing, but the goal was for us to be able to perform technical surgery,"

"At this point, I think we are quite happy with the results we were able to achieve with a very technically demanding operation."

James' eyes will continue to be monitored, but there is currently no visible connection between the eyeball and the brain via the optic nerve, the doctors said.

To encourage the connection between the donor and recipient optic nerves, surgeons take adult stem cells and inject them into the optic nerve during the transplant, hoping to replace damaged cells.

A viable eye transplant opens up many new possibilities, says Dr. Rodriguez, even if vision cannot be restored in this case. Other research teams are also developing ways to connect neural networks in the brain to the blind eye through the insertion of electrodes, for example, to enable vision, he said.

"If we can cooperate with other scientists who are working on other methods to restore vision or restore images to the visual cortex, I think we are already one step closer," he continued.