According to a recent report from the Physicist Organization Network, a team of New York surgeons in the United States has completed the world's first full eye transplant surgery. Although it is not yet known whether patients can see the world clearly with their new eyes, this medical breakthrough is a huge blessing for those with eye injuries. On May 27th of this year, the team led by Eduardo Rodriguez from the Langley Health Center at New York University performed an eye transplant and partial facial transplant on 46 year old power line worker Aaron James from Arkansas. After more than 5 months, his new eyeballs returned to health. During the surgery, the Rodriguez team transplanted part of the deceased donor's face and the entire left eye to Aaron, and the entire surgery lasted for about 21 hours. Aaron received a 7200 volt electric shock in June 2021, causing injuries to his left eye, left arm above the elbow, nose and lips, front teeth, left cheek, and chin. Aaron has undergone multiple facial transplant surgeries to date, but none of the surgeries involved repairing the eyes. Due to the complexity of eye organs, whole eye transplantation has always been a challenge in the medical community. Although researchers have partially restored animal vision, such transplants have never been performed on living humans. Rodriguez explained that the first challenge faced by whole eye transplantation is to extract the intricate vascular network around the eyeball. Unlike other facial features, the eyes receive blood from the brain area directly behind the eyeball. Therefore, surgeons must remove a portion of the donor's skull in order to enter these blood vessels. To avoid cutting off part of Aaron's skull, doctors connected its blood vessels to other blood vessels on the donor's face, bypassing the brain and re establishing blood flow to the eyes. In addition, doctors have never successfully connected the severed optic nerve (the nerve fibers that transmit information from the eyes to the brain) before. To this end, the Rodriguez team retained as much length of the donor optic nerve as possible to maximize the opportunity for nerve fiber regeneration and establish connections with Aaron's brain. They also utilized stem cells developed from the donor's bone marrow and injected them into the site where the donor's optic nerve met Aaron's optic nerve to further stimulate nerve growth. New York University ophthalmologist Vaidy Didania said that Aaron's transplanted left eye appears very healthy, with sufficient blood flow and internal fluid pressure, which can produce tears and electrical signals. Some nerve cells crucial for vision are also active. Although Aaron is currently unable to see the outside world, they are hopeful about this. Author: Liu Xia (Liao Xinshe)
Edit：GuoGuo Responsible editor：FangZhiYou
Source：people.cn
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