Background: Patients with severe unilateral ocular surface disease require rec onstruction of the damaged ocular surface. We succeeded in culturing primary cor neal limbal epithelial cells taken from minimal biopsy and,once grown, transplan ting them on denuded amniotic membrane (AM). Methods: Autologous corneal limbal epithelial cells from a 3 mm2 biopsy of the uninjured eye were grown for 3weeks on a denuded AM carrier. The resultant sheet was then transplanted onto the unil ateral severely chemically injured eye. Results: Minimal biopsy showed the autol ogous cultivated corneal epithelial cells to have 4-5 layers of sufficient stra tification and to be well differentiated. At 19 months post-transplantation, th e ocular surface epithelium was stable and there were no epithelial defects. Con clusion: We document that it is possible to produce sufficiently stratified, wel l differentiated, autologous cultivated corneal limbal epithelium on AM from a m inimal biopsy of the donor eye and to transplant it onto the injured eye.
展开▼
