Stem cell ‘ therapy ’ blinds three patients

Three people with macular degeneration were blinded after undergoing an unproven stem cell treatment that was touted as a clinical trial in 2015 at a clinic in Florida. Within a week following the treatment, the patients experienced a variety of complications, including vision loss, detached retinas and hemorrhage. They are now blind. A paper documenting the cases was published March 16 in The New England Journal of Medicine. The article is a “call to awareness for patients, physicians and regulatory agencies of the risks of this kind of minimally regulated, patient-funded research,” said Jeffrey Goldberg, MD, PhD, professor and chair of ophthalmology at the School of Medicine and co-author of the paper. The three patients — all women, ranging in age from 72 to 88 — suffered from macular degeneration, a common, progressive disease of the retina that leads to loss of vision. Before the surgery, the vision in their eyes ranged from 20/30 to 20/200. Now, the patients are likely to remain blind, said co-author Thomas Albini, MD, an associate professor of clinical ophthalmology at the University of Miami, where two of the patients were subsequently treated for complications from the stem cell treatments. “Although I can’t say it’s impossible, it’s extremely unlikely they would regain vision.”