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Tissue engineering makes autografts for acute corneal damage possible
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LISBON, Portugal — Radical surgery at the acute phase of ocular surface disorders is but one goal of ocular tissue engineering, said one presenter here at the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons meeting.
“Most doctors think that radical surgery at the acute phase is a contraindication, but if we could use this kind of cultivated epithelial cell sheet, maybe we could make some sort of paradigm shift,” Shigeru Kinoshita, MD, PhD, told attendees.
He said a quality epithelial cell sheet must have proliferative activity in the basal cells and must maintain a tight adhesion to the most superficial cell layers.
Dr. Kinoshita presented cases of scarred corneal tissue as a result of chemical injuries to support his suggestion of a paradigm shift. In one case, surgeons took limbal tissue from the contralateral eye and created a cell sheet, which was then applied to the scarred eye to achieve a clear cornea 2 years later.
“We are quite confident in the autograft of a cultivated epithelial cell sheet,” he said.
He also presented cases in which surgeons cultivated autografts from cell sheets created with oral epithelial cells. He said the clinical success rate in these cases was 87%.