- Dressings made from discs of human placenta are being used in hospitals
- The victims of eye injuries can see pain reduction of up to 70 per cent
- Experts say the medical advance has transformed treatment of burns injuries
Dressings made from discs of human placenta are being used in NHS hospitals on victims of eye injuries – to save their sight.
The patches can be applied directly to the eyes of burns or trauma victims, reducing pain by up to 70 per cent and promoting wound-healing.
Experts say that the medical advance has ‘transformed’ the way such injuries are treated.
The placenta, above, can be turned into discs and used to help patients with eye wound in their recovery
The remarkable material, known as Omnigen, is made from amnion, which is part of the placenta and is the innermost layer of the sac that surrounds the baby in the womb.
This is normally a waste product of birth, but experts at the University of Nottingham have developed a method of screening, sterilising and then preserving donor tissue given by women who have an elective caesarean.
After trials in specialist hospitals around the UK, it will be available nationally from April.
Amnion contains growth factors and has natural healing properties. Since it is transparent, it can be applied directly to the cornea to promote healing.
The amnion once had to be frozen, which damaged the tissue and compromised its wound-healing properties. The Nottingham team has devised a way to preserve it so it can be kept in sealed packets at room temperature.
Omnigen is now available at about 40 UK hospitals, where surgeons stitch it to the eye.
The manufacturers, NuVision Biotherapies, have also launched a ‘contact lens’ version of the patch, called OmniLenz, which means Omnigen can be applied directly to the eye without the need for complex surgery.
‘The hope is to be able to treat sight-threatening eye injury simply by applying the contact lens,’ says Dr Andrew Hopkinson, principal research fellow at the University of Nottingham and CEO of NuVision Biotherapies, who devised the new method of preserving amnion as part of his ophthalmology PhD.
‘OmniLenz is a unique contact lens that can be used to apply Omnigen without the need for stitches, which can be very complex in the eye, and will allow hospital ophthalmology departments to treat patients quickly in clinic and improve their chance of recovery,’ he says.
There are more than 120,000 eye injuries every year in the UK. Up to 2,000 people injure their eyes at work each day and about one in seven injuries will cause temporary or permanent vision loss.
Aside from this, sport is the biggest cause of hospital admission for serious eye injury in the UK. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents estimates that squash balls alone are responsible for 2,000 hospital admissions in the UK each year, while squash rackets account for about 2,400.
To make Omnigen, the amnion is separated from the adjacent layer of donated tissue. It is sterilised, dried and cut into discs to be stored. When it is applied to the human eye, the natural moisture in the eye rehydrates the patch, where it reduces pain, fights infections and promotes healing.
‘This is an advanced type of healing therapy which can be used to repair damage to the surface of the eye, and saves patients having to be taken to the operating theatre,’ says Alex Shortt, consultant ophthalmologist at University College London and Optegra Eye Hospital. ‘It is transforming practice since it can conveniently be used in an emergency or military setting.