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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Sarah Boseley Health editor

UNBELIEVABLE: Doctors hope for blindness cure after restoring patients sight | History Defined

Douglas Waters, one of the patients who had the operation, with (left to right) Prof Lyndon da Cruz, his wife Freda, and Odysseas Georgiadis.
Douglas Waters, one of the patients who had the operation, with (left to right) Prof Lyndon da Cruz, Douglas’s wife Freda Waters, and Odysseas Georgiadis. Photograph: Moorfields Eye Hospital

A treatment for the commonest cause of blindness could be available within five years, scientists believe, after revealing the first two patients given a revolutionary stem cell therapy have regained enough vision to be able to read.

The two patients have advanced AMD – age-related macular degeneration – which destroys the central vision. Both were losing their sight. They were, said their surgeon, unable to see a book, let alone the printed letters.

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