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Stem cells could cure 'silent thief of sight'

Glaucoma "the silent thief of sight" is the most common cause of irreversible blindness in the developed world because of the  manner in which many patients have already suffered significant visual loss before they are diagnosed.Current treatment can only slow progression of the disease by reducing eye pressure medically or surgically but even this doesn’t succeed for some patients.

Currently there is  no way to restore vision once it has been lost. Fight for Sight funding is helping to explore the possibility that stem cell treatments could one day be used to treat glaucoma.

Doctors have recently had some very encouraging results in animals with glaucoma which shows that stem cells can protect against glaucoma damage."In the future, our dream is to be able to use stem cell treatments to improve vision in patients severe glaucoma. However, it will be a few more years until these treatments are ready for human clinical trials."
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