LONDON - For two decades, Eric Selby had been completely blind and dependent on a guide dog to get around. But after having an artificial retina put into his right eye, he can detect ordinary things like the curb and the sidewalk when he's walking outside.
"It's basically flashes of light that you have to translate in your brain, but it's amazing I can see anything at all," said Selby, 68, a retired engineer in Coventry, central England.
More than a year ago, he had an artificial implant called the Argus II, made by U.S.-based company Second Sight, surgically inserted into his right eye. Dutch regulators are expected to decide within weeks on the company's request to market the device in the EU. If greenlighted, it would be the first artificial retina available for sale.
The implant works with a tiny video camera and transmitter in a pair of glasses and a small wireless computer.
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The computer processes scenes captured by the camera and converts them into visual information in the form of an electronic signal that's sent to the implant. The device stimulates the retina's remaining healthy cells, causing them to relay the data to the optic nerve.
The visual information then moves to the brain, where it's translated into patterns of light that can take the shape of an object's outline. Patients need to learn how to interpret the flashes of light; for instance, they might decode three bright dots as the three points of a triangle.
The implant is intended only for people with a specific type of inherited retina problem, who still have some functional cells. They must have previously been able to see and their optic nerve must work.
About one in 3,000 people are blind due to one of this group of hereditary diseases, called retinitis pigmentosa, and might potentially benefit from the artificial retina.
The device comes with a hefty price tag - about $100,000. In Britain, the national health service sometimes pays for expensive new technologies for a small number of patients, said Lyndon da Cruz, one of the doctors who tested the artificial retina at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London.
He said if the artificial retina allows patients to be more self-sufficient, the implant could turn out to be cheaper than governments paying for higher levels of health care or in-home care for patients.
So far, about 40 people have gotten the artificial retina since 2002 and some patients have seen well enough to identify objects and shapes, or even read large print during their participation in trials.
Selby says his artificial retina allows him to see certain shapes and shades of black, white and gray. He mostly uses it to help navigate his walking route outside.
"I'm only seeing a fraction of things but it does still help," he said. Selby lost his sight nearly 20 years ago due to an inherited eye condition and hopes his grandchildren and future generations might benefit from his experience with the implant.
"It's like when people were first trying to fly to the moon," he said. "Nowadays they're sending people to the moon and into space, but they had to start off with a propeller engine. … For artificial eye implants, it could be a whole different ballgame in a few years."
