Experimental stem-cell treatment offers hope to those whose vision problems are severe
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2014/03/27/relief-in-sight.html
By Joe Blundo
The Columbus Dispatch • Thursday March 27, 2014
Paul Walker will undergo an eye procedure next week that could give him back simple pleasures such as working in the garden or leafing through a magazine.
The procedure, an experimental stem-cell treatment, has already restored some sight for two other central Ohioans and holds the same hope for Walker, a Bexley resident who is legally blind.
“Are you kidding?” was Walker’s initial reaction when Susan Benes, a Columbus neuro-ophthalmologist, told him a few months ago that a clinical trial offered the promise of better vision.
The Stem Cell Ophthalmology Treatment Study is a federally approved trial being conducted at Retinal Associates, a medical practice near Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The study tests stem-cell treatment on people 18 and older with glaucoma, macular degeneration and various retinal disorders.
The trial, which began in August and is scheduled to run until 2017, can offer only anecdotal evidence of effectiveness at this point, said study director Steven Levy, a Connecticut doctor who is president of the consulting company MD Stem Cells.
Still, results have been encouraging in the 35 or so people treated to date.
“It seems to be a benefit for most patients,” Levy said.
In an hourlong procedure, doctors extract bone marrow from a patient’s hip, harvest the stem cells and inject them into one or both of the patient’s eyes. The hope is that the cells grow into specialized cells that regenerate or repair damaged eye tissue.
The treatment draws praise from patients Tina Hamric, 58; and Hannah Moore, 24.
On a Sunday morning in 2010, Hamric woke up at her home in Stoutsville with partial vision in her right eye.
As she went from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what was wrong, the fuzziness at the top of her field of vision spread downward until she had lost 90 percent of the sight in the eye. She thinks the left eye was also beginning to deteriorate, but she didn’t notice a problem because the right one was so bad.
“It was a scary thing to wake up and lose your eyesight in one eye. And then to know it could happen to the other eye, too — oh, my gosh.”
Hamric, an accountant, stopped driving at night; needed a bigger computer screen at work; and found reading, one of her favorite pursuits, increasingly difficult.
She was finally referred to Benes, who told her she had a rare autoimmune disease called neuromyelitis optica. Basically, the body’s immune system was attacking the optic nerve.
Benes treated it with immune-suppression drugs, which inhibited the spread of the disease but could’t restore the sight that Hamric had lost.
In the fall, Hamric was told about the stem-cell procedure in Florida.
Because the treatment is experimental, the procedure isn’t covered by insurance, so patients must bear the $20,000 cost. Hamric and her husband, Tony, didn’t have to think long before agreeing that the money was worth it.
“I just felt blessed to be in the study,” said Hamric, who underwent the procedure in November.
Since then, the vision in her right eye has improved from 20/300 to 20/200, and her left eye is back to 20/20 with a corrective lens.
The full benefits of treatment, Levy said, can take four to six months to become apparent.
Moore’s problems started about a year ago in her left eye; and, within a few months, both eyes deteriorated dramatically.
“I went from perfect vision to basically nothing,” said Moore, of Cambridge in Guernsey County.
Benes diagnosed Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy, a genetic condition that damages the eye cells.
By the time Moore went to Florida for the stem-cell procedure in December, she couldn’t recognize faces or walk without guidance.
Three months later, she is thrilled with her progress.
“I have some huge improvements,” she said. “Right now I can walk around by myself, and I don’t trip over things.”
The stories of Hamric and Moore have persuaded Walker to try the treatment. He and his wife, Christine Osterman, dipped into retirement money to pay for the procedure. They started an Internet fundraising campaign (www.gofundme.com/72btg4) to cover travel.
Walker, a 64-year-old retired investigator for the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, was born with cataracts and lost all vision in his right eye when he developed Leber’s as a teenager.
In early adulthood, he developed glaucoma in the left eye but still had enough vision to read, garden and pursue a photography hobby. But the left eye began deteriorating rapidly in the mid-1990s; and, by 2002, he needed a guide dog.
Although he doesn’t expect his sightless right eye to recover, he hopes to regain enough vision in the left eye to resume simple activities, such as picking out merchandise in a store and playing with his 1-year-old granddaughter without fear of tripping over her.
“I always said, if I live long enough, maybe there’d be something to come along that I’ll have a chance to see somewhat better before I die,” he said.
“And, all of a sudden, it’s here.”
To learn more about the Stem Cell Ophthalmology Treatment Study, visit www.clinicaltrials.gov
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2014/03/27/relief-in-sight.html
By Joe Blundo
The Columbus Dispatch • Thursday March 27, 2014
Paul Walker will undergo an eye procedure next week that could give him back simple pleasures such as working in the garden or leafing through a magazine.
The procedure, an experimental stem-cell treatment, has already restored some sight for two other central Ohioans and holds the same hope for Walker, a Bexley resident who is legally blind.
“Are you kidding?” was Walker’s initial reaction when Susan Benes, a Columbus neuro-ophthalmologist, told him a few months ago that a clinical trial offered the promise of better vision.
The Stem Cell Ophthalmology Treatment Study is a federally approved trial being conducted at Retinal Associates, a medical practice near Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The study tests stem-cell treatment on people 18 and older with glaucoma, macular degeneration and various retinal disorders.
The trial, which began in August and is scheduled to run until 2017, can offer only anecdotal evidence of effectiveness at this point, said study director Steven Levy, a Connecticut doctor who is president of the consulting company MD Stem Cells.
Still, results have been encouraging in the 35 or so people treated to date.
“It seems to be a benefit for most patients,” Levy said.
In an hourlong procedure, doctors extract bone marrow from a patient’s hip, harvest the stem cells and inject them into one or both of the patient’s eyes. The hope is that the cells grow into specialized cells that regenerate or repair damaged eye tissue.
The treatment draws praise from patients Tina Hamric, 58; and Hannah Moore, 24.
On a Sunday morning in 2010, Hamric woke up at her home in Stoutsville with partial vision in her right eye.
As she went from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what was wrong, the fuzziness at the top of her field of vision spread downward until she had lost 90 percent of the sight in the eye. She thinks the left eye was also beginning to deteriorate, but she didn’t notice a problem because the right one was so bad.
“It was a scary thing to wake up and lose your eyesight in one eye. And then to know it could happen to the other eye, too — oh, my gosh.”
Hamric, an accountant, stopped driving at night; needed a bigger computer screen at work; and found reading, one of her favorite pursuits, increasingly difficult.
She was finally referred to Benes, who told her she had a rare autoimmune disease called neuromyelitis optica. Basically, the body’s immune system was attacking the optic nerve.
Benes treated it with immune-suppression drugs, which inhibited the spread of the disease but could’t restore the sight that Hamric had lost.
In the fall, Hamric was told about the stem-cell procedure in Florida.
Because the treatment is experimental, the procedure isn’t covered by insurance, so patients must bear the $20,000 cost. Hamric and her husband, Tony, didn’t have to think long before agreeing that the money was worth it.
“I just felt blessed to be in the study,” said Hamric, who underwent the procedure in November.
Since then, the vision in her right eye has improved from 20/300 to 20/200, and her left eye is back to 20/20 with a corrective lens.
The full benefits of treatment, Levy said, can take four to six months to become apparent.
Moore’s problems started about a year ago in her left eye; and, within a few months, both eyes deteriorated dramatically.
“I went from perfect vision to basically nothing,” said Moore, of Cambridge in Guernsey County.
Benes diagnosed Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy, a genetic condition that damages the eye cells.
By the time Moore went to Florida for the stem-cell procedure in December, she couldn’t recognize faces or walk without guidance.
Three months later, she is thrilled with her progress.
“I have some huge improvements,” she said. “Right now I can walk around by myself, and I don’t trip over things.”
The stories of Hamric and Moore have persuaded Walker to try the treatment. He and his wife, Christine Osterman, dipped into retirement money to pay for the procedure. They started an Internet fundraising campaign (www.gofundme.com/72btg4) to cover travel.
Walker, a 64-year-old retired investigator for the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, was born with cataracts and lost all vision in his right eye when he developed Leber’s as a teenager.
In early adulthood, he developed glaucoma in the left eye but still had enough vision to read, garden and pursue a photography hobby. But the left eye began deteriorating rapidly in the mid-1990s; and, by 2002, he needed a guide dog.
Although he doesn’t expect his sightless right eye to recover, he hopes to regain enough vision in the left eye to resume simple activities, such as picking out merchandise in a store and playing with his 1-year-old granddaughter without fear of tripping over her.
“I always said, if I live long enough, maybe there’d be something to come along that I’ll have a chance to see somewhat better before I die,” he said.
“And, all of a sudden, it’s here.”
To learn more about the Stem Cell Ophthalmology Treatment Study, visit www.clinicaltrials.gov