Researchers in the US are preparing to present their findings on a “breakthrough technique” that uses electricity to mold the cornea and offers a potentially safer, cheaper alternative to LASIK.
And it’s a technique they claim to have stumbled on, almost by accident.
According to a story published in ScienceDaily, Professor Michael Hill, from the chemistry department at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and collaborator Professor Brian Wong are exploring a process known as electromechanical reshaping (EMR).
“The whole effect was discovered by accident,” explains Prof Wong, an educator and surgeon at the University of California, Irvine.
“I was looking at living tissues as moldable materials and discovered this whole process of chemical modification.”
The shapes of many collagen-containing tissues, including corneas, are held in place by attractions of oppositely charged components.
The article said that these tissues contain a lot of water, so applying an electric potential to them lowers the tissue’s pH, making it more acidic.
By altering the pH, the rigid attractions within the tissue are loosened and make the shape malleable. When the original pH is restored, the tissue is locked into the new shape.
Previously, the researchers used EMR to reshape cartilage-rich rabbit ears, as well as alter scars and skin in pigs. But one collagen-rich tissue that they were eager to explore was the cornea.
Human corneas are dome-shaped, clear structures that sit at the front of the eye, bending light from surroundings and focusing it onto the retina, where it’s sent to the brain and interpreted as an image. But if the cornea is misshapen, it doesn’t focus light properly, resulting in a blurry image.
In this work, the team constructed specialised, platinum “contact lenses” that provided a template for the corrected shape of the cornea, then placed each over a rabbit eyeball in a saline solution meant to mimic natural tears.
The platinum lens acted as an electrode to generate a precise pH change when the researchers applied a small electric potential to the lens. After about a minute, the cornea’s curvature conformed to the shape of the lens — about the same amount of time LASIK takes, but with fewer steps, less expensive equipment and no incisions.
They repeated this setup on 12 separate rabbit eyeballs, 10 of which were treated as if they had myopia, or nearsightedness.
The article said that, in all of the “myopic” eyeballs, the treatment dialled in the targeted focusing power of the eye, which would correspond to improved vision. The cells in the eyeball survived the treatment, because the researchers carefully controlled the pH gradient.
Additionally, in other experiments, the team demonstrated that their technique might be able to reverse some chemical-caused cloudiness to the cornea – a condition that is currently only treatable through a complete corneal transplant.
This initial work is promising, but the researchers emphasise that it is in its early stages.
Next up is what Prof Wong describes as, “the long march through animal studies that are detailed and precise”, including tests on a living rabbit rather than just its eyeball.
They also plan to determine the types of vision correction possible with EMR, such as near- and far-sightedness and astigmatism.
“There’s a long road between what we’ve done and the clinic. But, if we get there, this technique is widely applicable, vastly cheaper and potentially even reversible,” said Hill.
He is presenting his team’s results to the American Chemical Society this week.
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