Purpose of Review
Corneal disease affects 12.7 million individuals globally, and the current gold standard therapy using a human donor cornea (HDC) in low-risk patients or keratoprosthesis in high-risk patients is prone to graft rejection. New techniques are currently being investigated to regenerate corneal tissue to provide a more effective treatment for corneal blindness.
Recent Findings
Research into corneal regeneration falls broadly into three categories: cell-based therapies using autografts or allografts expanded in culture, material-based therapies that provide fully synthetic scaffolds, and cell-biomaterial composites that combine both strategies. Progress has been made developing tissue-specific solutions and multilayer grafts to target specific types of corneal disease.
Summary
All three classes of therapies have shown progress. The recent European approval of “Holoclar” composite autografts and the phase I clinical trials of fully synthetic corneas demonstrate that research in this field is being actively translated into clinical practice.