Phil Durst recalled clawing at his face after a chemical from a commercial dishwashing machine squirted into his eyes, causing “the most indescribable pain I’ve ever felt - ever, ever, ever.”
His left eye bore the brunt of the 2017 work accident, which stole his vision, left him unable to tolerate light and triggered four to five cluster headaches a day.
The 51-year-old from Homewood, Alabama, was one of four patients to get stem cell transplants as part of the first U.S. study to test the technique, which could someday help thousands. Though additional treatment is sometimes needed, experts say the stem cell transplant offers hope to people with few if any other options.
Dr. Ula Jurkunas, an ophthalmologist at Mass Eye and Ear in Boston who was the principal investigator for the study, said the experimental technique involves taking a small biopsy of stem cells from the healthy eye, then expanding and growing them on a graft in a lab at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
She said this method is better than a different procedure that takes a very large piece of stem cells from a healthy eye for use on an injured eye - but risks damaging the good eye. All patients in the study saw their cornea surfaces restored. Durst and another patient were then able to get transplants of artificial corneas, while two others reported much-improved vision with the stem cell transplant alone. A fifth patient didn’t get the procedure because the stem cells weren’t able to adequately expand.
“There’s definitely an unmet clinical need for this effort - there’s no question,” said Dr. Tueng Shen, an ophthalmology professor at the University of Washington who was not involved in the research. She added that doctors currently have no reliable source of cultivated limbal stem cells.
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