Over a year post surgery, the US researchers who performed the world’s first whole-eye transplant concluded it’s a feasible procedure, citing evidence of preservation of retinal viability and perfusion, despite patient Aaron James lacking any vision in the transplanted eye.  

Writing in JAMA, researchers from New York University Langone Health reported James’s transplanted eye showed maintenance of an intraocular pressure within the normal range, perfusion of the retinal and choroidal vessels on fluorescein and indocyanine green angiography and persistence of some retinal architecture on OCT and some minimal response detected on electroretinogram. “However, the vision remained no light perception with pallor of the optic nerve and loss of retinal tissue on OCT,” they said. 

Talking to Scientific American, James said he’s pain-free and the eye feels like his own, despite his surgeons initially being concerned there might be a lot of pain. “It’s really just exceeded expectations – just the fact that it’s still alive after almost a year and a half. Right after the surgery, they (his doctors) were like, ‘OK, it’s survived the surgery. Now let’s do 90 days.’ And we made it past 90 days. And it just keeps going and going. So we’re kind of in uncharted waters right now.”