( Ophthalmologists at Rush University Med...)Ophthalmologists implant five patients with artificial silicon retina microchip

Four patients had surgery Tuesday, January 25. The fifth patient is scheduled for a later date.

Rush principal investigator Dr. John Pollack performed the surgeries with Dr. Kirk Packo, Dr. Pauline Merrill, Dr. Mathew MacCumber, and Dr. Jack Cohen. All are members of Illinois Retina Associates, S.C., a private practice group and are on the Rush faculty. Patients leave the hospital the same day and will be followed for two years as part of the study, and then indefinitely.

The patients were recruited from a pool of about 5,000 applicants.

The implants are designed for people with retinal diseases such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, which cause blindness and vision impairment in about 10 million Americans. More than one million of these people are legally blind.

"As is commonly seen in with retinitis pigmentosa, these patients all have severe narrowing of their visual fields down to a very small central circle, and all patients in the study are legally blind," says Pollack.

The Artificial Silicon RetinaTM (ASR) was invented by Dr. Alan Chow, pediatric ophthalmologist and Rush faculty member, who developed the chip and founded Optobionics, with his brother Vincent, vice president of engineering. Optobionics is located in Naperville, Illinois.

"This is an expansion of the study of the first 10 patients completed in 2002," says study investigator Dr. Kirk Packo, who oversees the three participating sites. The sites are Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Emory University School of Medicine/Atlanta VA Medical Center and Rush.

Pollack says the current protocol has been
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Source:Rush University Medical Center