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Silicon eye implants

by Medindia Content Team on Sep 3 2001 10:45 AM

In this era of transplants and implants ,a new annotation that is in research process happens to be the silicon implants.If these silicons are to used for the sake of blindness .....is there anyhting more to say.

This is real and this is happening , the chip, called Artificial Silicon Retina (ASR), is being planned to be implanted in three people suffreing from retinal damage.This project is planned by doctors at Illinois. Ophthalmologist Alan Chow, the co-inventor of the device, who had already done this work an year back over three people who had lost their vision due to a hereditory condition called retinitis pigmentosa,said that implanting three more people will give them a large data.

He would be doing the implant of these micro chips in one woman and two men suffering from retinitis pigmentosa . The whole procedure would be about 2-1/2-hour and will take place in Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, Illinois, where two of the patients underwent procedures last year.

FDA has authorised for about 10 implants and the results will determine whether additional patients will be enrolled in the study.The microsurgery starts with three incisions smaller than the diameter of a needle in the white part of the eye.through these incisions the gel in the middle part of the eye is removed and is replaced with saline solution.Then the surgeons make a pinpoint opening in the retina to inject fluid in order to lift up the retina the place the microchip,which is just 2 millimeters in diameter and 1/1000 of an inch in thickness in position.The retina is resealed over the chip.

The chip contains 3,500 microscopic solar cells that convert light into electrical impulses and works by replacing damaged photoreceptors,the light-sensing cells of the eye.The chip cannot help people with blindness caused by severe glaucoma or diabetes.


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