(ANSA) - LONDON, 21 April - In Britain, two patients completely blind in his fifties have regained partial use of sight thanks to pioneering surgery which led to an artificial retina implant, promptly dubbed'' bionic eye.'' The interventions, unprecedented in the United Kingdom, have been performed at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and outside an experimental three-year plan to establish 'bionic eye' to fifteen blind in the United States in Europe and Mexico . If the program's budget will be 'positive, the new, advanced technique could become routine after 2010. The two blind operated in London suffering from a hereditary disease, retinitis pigmentosa, which progressively destroys the cells in the eye sensitive to light. The intervention (about 3 hours, at a cost of around € 19,000 ) should enable them to see in simple black and white objects and then be able to move without more LaVere 'need someone. The surgeons, ophthalmologists of Moorfields Eye Hospital have won blindness' implanted in the retina at the back of the eye a finger thick metal electrode to the optic nerve that transmits visual impulses captured by mini-cameras mounted on a special pair of glasses. The device (called the Argus II Retinal Implant) and 'was developed in United States by the company '' Second Sight 'and is' a top model (having 60 instead of 16 electrodes) compared with a prototype installed for the first time in a human eye in 2002. Now already 'working on a bionic eye, even more' powerful and refined, with thousands of electrodes. In the UK operations on two patients without 'the gift of sight were carried out last week. According to the doctors will take several months for two people to learn how to best use the new bionic eye'',''still very primitive compared to the capacity 'natural eye. According to Greg Cosendai, a representative of Second Sight in Europe, should receive enough information to read even if you can not 'take for assume that they will do it. (ANSA).
