An artificial cornea developed by an Israeli company has been successfully implanted in the eye of a man who lost his sight a decade ago.

According to a release by CorNeat Vision, the 78-year-old patient regained his vision after the CorNeat KPro device was implanted into the eye. The company said the implant replaces deformed, scarred, or opacified corneas by melding with the eye wall.

Ultimately, the device is designed to integrate with ocular tissue using a synthetic non-degradable nanofabric skirt that is placed under the conjunctiva.

The procedure was performed by Professor Irit Bahar, the head of the ophthalmology department at Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva, Israel.

“Our first trial includes blind patients who are not suitable candidates for- or have failed one or more corneal transplantations,” Almog Aley-Raz, CorNeat Vision’s co-founder, said in the statement. “Given the visual performance of our device, the expected healing time and retention, and the fact that it cannot carry disease, we plan to initiate a second study later this year with broader indications to approve our artificial cornea as a first line treatment, displacing the use of donor tissue used in full thickness corneal transplantations.”

In this image, you see what an artificial cornea actually looks like. This one was made by the union of a donor cornea and a prosthesis. This aritfiical cornea is known as the Boston Keratoprosthesis type 1.

This is implanted when penetrating keratoplasty is not possible to perform.

Image: Wikimedia/Mariagessa