ÜDS-Sağlık 2003-1 Soru=54

We learn from the passage that retinitis pigmentosa ---- .

Transplants of foetal eye tissue from aborted
foetuses seem to have improved the vision of two
out of four people with a degenerative eye
disease. It is too early to be sure the
improvements are real and lasting, but on the
strength of the results, the team pioneering the
surgery has asked regulators for permission to
carry out further operations. Before the
experimental surgery on her left eye a year ago,
Elisabeth Bryant, who is 63, could barely see
anything with it. "Now I can see people's eyes,
noses and mouths when they're sitting across the
room from me. Like the other patients in the trial,
she has advanced retinitis pigmentosa, a
hereditary disease that causes degeneration of
the retina. It affects around 1 in 3500 people in
Western countries. Those involved in the
transplants admit that there is a danger of creating
false hope, but point out that the potential benefits
of the procedure are so great that work on it must
continue. They believe it could lead to a treatment
for common diseases, such as age-related
macular degeneration, which is responsible for
half the blindness in Britain. This is a condition
which seems to be on the increase and occurring
at younger age levels.