An artificial retina developed by a French company allows people with retinitis pigmentosa to see again. Five patients have already been equipped, including two in France.
Allowing blind people to re-perceive things and the people around them and thus give them back part of their autonomy is the incredible challenge facing a French society. Indeed, the Pixium company has been developing an electronic retinal implant since 2011. A cutting-edge technology, called “Iris”, which is currently the subject of an international clinical study, the first results of which seem to be very encouraging. While between ten and twenty patients should be equipped in three centers in France, Germany and Austria, to date, five of them have already been equipped with this “bionic eye”, including two. in France.
” A new life starts “
Asked about France Inter, one of the operated French patients, Barbara, recounts the miracle from which she was able to benefit seven months ago. “It was sensational. Just before, I was afraid of not seeing. And then, the flash came, it was a great emotion, ”she explains to our colleagues. The intervention took place at the Rothschild Foundation, and this woman, blind for 20 years until then, is now in the rehabilitation phase.
Today, even if she has not fully recovered her vision, she is still able to perceive objects of different sizes on a table and can distinguish black and white. However, specialists specify that this technology will not be aimed at all blind people. For the moment, people who are blind from birth cannot benefit from this implant. On the other hand, this innovation is aimed at patients who have already seen, such as those with retinopathy pigmentosa, a disease causing a progressive restriction of the visual field and having a vague perception of light.
A French implant marketed in 2015
This retinal prosthesis, like others already developed abroad, particularly in the United States, works thanks to a camera attached to glasses which records the movements subsequently sent to the implant itself. The latter is connected to electrodes which communicate directly with the brain. A brain which must then make the effort to interpret them to reconstruct an image. And it is precisely because there is this rehabilitation work to be done that improving vision can take several months. If the current clinical study confirms these encouraging preliminary results, the first French artificial implant should be marketed in 2015 at a price of 100,000 euros.
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