1-Year Follow-Up for Combined Whole Eye and Face Transplant Are Described

Ceradini DJ, Tran DL, Dedania VS, et al. Combined Whole Eye and Face Transplant: Microsurgical Strategy and 1-Year Clinical Course. JAMA. 2024.

Goldberg, J.L. Bringing Eye Transplant into the Light. JAMA (2024).

Ceradini and coauthors developed a microsurgical strategy for combined facial and eye transplantation in a single patient. The article describes the status of the patient at 1 year post transplant.

The patient was 46 years old at the time he sustained facial and ocular destruction from an electrical injury. Facial and eye transplantation were performed using tissue from an immunologically compatible donor and conventional immunosuppression

Global and retinal perfusion were maintained throughout the initial postoperative period; imaging confirmed atrophy of the inner retinal layers. Retinal responses to light were confirmed, but at 1 year post transplant there was no perception of light in the transplanted eye.

The authors concluded that rejection-free graft survival with retinal responses to light were encouraging findings that support ongoing efforts to develop donor selection, organ preservation, and transplantation surgical techniques to accomplish successful eye transplantation with preservation of vision.

In the editorial that accompanied the article, Goldberg stressed the fact that the neural tissues that support vision do not regenerate after injury and, therefore, successful techniques for harvest and preservation of retinal tissue and optic nerve axons will be critical for eye transplant success in the future.