The first transplant of an entire eye in a human is a fact

A surgical team at NYU Langone Health in New York has performed the first successful whole eye transplant in a living human, Aaron James.

After an accident at work resulted in the loss of his left eye and part of his face, Aaron can now use his new eye.

On that day in late May, a team of more than 140 surgeons at NYU Langone Health completed Aaron’s transplant procedure, which lasted about 21 hours. The operation, according to CNN, included the transplantation of the entire left eye and parts of the face from a single donor. It was a medical innovation.

Aaron’s eye is now showing “remarkable” signs of health, according to his medical team. Even though he can’t see out of the eye, he remains optimistic that sight may come in time – and that his first-of-its-kind procedure can help advance transplant medicine.

After the accident, the discussions around the possibility of transplantation kept the doctors very busy, and finally asked the Texas team to preserve as much of the optic nerve as possible with the hope of a possible eye transplant.

However, there was always the possibility that the donor eye would not restore vision. For vision to occur, there must be some communication between the transplanted eye and the brain.

“But I said ‘even if it doesn’t work, I’ll have one eyeand it will at least look normal, and then you all could learn something from it””, Aaron said. “You must have a patient zero.”

Aaron was listed as a potential recipient in February 2023. The opportunity to receive the whole eye and part of the face transplant came just a few months later, in May.

It was a “risky” operation for the medical team, as no one in the world had previously successfully transplanted a human eye into a living patient.

“This is really my greatest hope”Aaron stated. “If I can see beyond that, that’s great. But if it will trigger the next step in the medical field, then I’m all for it.”