Health Issue: RAY OF HOPE Blindness due to burns

Stem cells help reverse blindness due to burns Los Angeles: Dozens of people who were blinded or otherwise suffered severe eye damage when they were splashed with caustic chemicals had their sight restored with cornea transplants from their own stem cells-a stunning success for the cell-therapy field, Italian researchers reported.        The treatment worked completely in 82 of 107 eyes and partially in 14 others, with benefits lasting up to a decade so far. One man whose eyes were severely damaged more than 60 years ago now has near-normal vision. Stem cell transplants offer ho;e to the thousands o9f people worldwide every year who suffer chemical burns on their corness from havy-duty cleansers or other substances at work or at home.        The approach would not help people with damage to the optic nerve or macular4 degeneration, which involves the retina. Nor would it work in people who are completely bolind in both eyes, because doctors need at least some healthy tissue that they can transplant. In the study, published online by the New England journal of Medicine, researchers took a small number of stem cells from a patient's healthy eye, multiplied them in the lab and placed them into the burned eye, where they were able to grow new corneal tissue to replace what had been damage. Since the stem cells are from their own bodies, the patients do not need to take anti-rejection drugs.        Adult stem cells have been used for decades to cure blood cancers as leukemia and diseases like sickle cell anemia. But fixing a problem like damaged eyes is a relatively new use. Researchers have been studying cell therapy for a host of other diseases, including diabeetes and heart failure, with limited success.       Adult stem cells, which are found around the body, are different from embryonic stem cells, which come from human embryos and have stirred ethical concerns because removing the cells requires destroying the embryo.