At a Glance
- Nicki Guy, 47, has become the first patient to regain sight after a pioneering gel injection for the rare condition hypotony
- The mother lost vision in both eyes after her right eye collapsed in 2017 and her left eye failed soon after
- 7 of 8 patients in the Moorfields Eye Hospital trial responded positively to the hydroxypropyl methylcellulose procedure
- Why it matters: The treatment could offer hope to thousands suffering severe vision loss from low eye pressure
A blind mother has had her sight restored after becoming the first person to receive an experimental gel injection that reverses damage caused by a rare eye disorder.
Nicki Guy, 47, began losing her vision in 2017 when her right eye “sort of collapsed” due to hypotony, a condition that causes dangerously low pressure inside the eye. Standard silicone-oil therapy failed, and within a few years she also lost vision in her left eye, leaving her unable to see her child grow up.
The breakthrough treatment
Surgeons at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London proposed an untested option: injecting a water-based gel called hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPCM) into the vitreous chamber of the eye. The gel restores internal pressure, allowing the retina to detect light signals and transmit them to the optic nerve.
Guy consented immediately. “After I lost vision in my left eye, I thought, ‘there has to be something else we can try,'” she told the BBC.
The outpatient procedure worked. Guy can now read most lines on an eye chart and has returned to daily activities that once seemed impossible.
Life restored
“It’s life-changing. It’s given me everything back,” she said. “I can see my child grow up. I’ve gone from counting fingers and everything being really blurry to being able to see.”
Her consultant, Harry Petrushkin, admitted the team worried about risking the last vestiges of sight in a patient with only one functioning eye. “The idea that we might be causing harm to somebody who has only really one eye with a treatment that may or may not work was nerve-wracking,” he told the BBC. “We came up with this as a solution and amazingly it worked.”
Trial results
Moorfields, now the world’s first clinic dedicated to hypotony, has treated eight patients with the gel. Seven responded positively; Guy was the first.
Hypotony can stem from:
- Trauma
- Surgery
- Intraocular inflammation
- Certain systemic or topical medications
For some patients it causes no symptoms; for others, like Guy, it triggers severe vision loss.
Next steps
Although her vision has improved dramatically, Guy is not yet legally able to drive. She hopes continued recovery will one day let her pass the required eye test.
“If my vision stays like this for the rest of my life, it would be absolutely brilliant,” she said. “I may not ever be able to drive again, but I’ll take that!”
Petrushkin called the outcome beyond expectations: “We could not have dreamt of her having the outcome that she has had. Somebody, who by all rights should have lost her vision in both eyes… is now living normally … We couldn’t have hoped for better.”
News Of Losangeles has contacted Moorfields Eye Hospital for additional comment.
