Doctors have utilized gene therapy to aid vision in patients that suffer from a rare kind of blindness. Patients were aided who were suffering from a rare eye disorder called Leber’s congenital amaurosis..

Rare And Usually Incurable Eye Condition Aided By New Treatment

New York - Doctors have utilized gene therapy to aid vision in patients that suffer from a rare kind of blindness. Patients were aided who were suffering from a rare eye disorder called Leber’s congenital amaurosis.

The new results are considered a big breakthrough for patients that suffer from a previously incurable form of blindness. It is a welcome new potential treatment and use for gene therapy that has had its share of major setbacks over the last 15 years.

“This is a true revolutionary discovery,” said the Chairman of Genetic Medicine at Weill Medical College at Cornell University, Ronald Crystal. “It is evidence that types of gene therapy can truly work and be beneficial,” said Dr. Crystal.

Of the patients treated with the new gene therapy technique, none of them regained total or normal vision, but of the six patients that were treated at least four reported that they enjoyed much better and improved eyesight than they had previously.

The results to this breakthrough study were published in the online version of the New England Journal of Medicine in two separate studies.

The rare eye disorder affects eyesight starting at birth and leads to total blindness of the patient by age twenty. Previous attempts to treat this disorder included medication and cataract surgery but there had never been any notable success in treating this condition before the recent usage of gene therapy.