Italian surgeons perform world-first macular transplant, restoring sight to a woman blind for five years
A 67-year-old woman named Elena, blind for five years after a severe car crash, regained vision following a nearly six-hour operation at Turin's Molinette hospital that rebuilt one functioning eye from two damaged ones.
The patient and her injuries
Elena, 67, lost her sight in a serious traffic accident five years ago. The crash caused irreparable damage to the optic nerve of her left eye, meaning light could no longer travel from that eye to the brain, even though the eye's structures remained intact. Her right eye, already affected by macular degeneration, suffered irreversible injury to the retina and cornea. "The total destruction of the area containing stem cells made a classic corneal transplant absolutely impossible," doctors at the Molinette hospital stated, leaving her with no conventional treatment path.
The surgical breakthrough
A team led by Professor Michele Reibaldi overcame what the hospital described as an obstacle "considered insurmountable until now." Surgeons harvested healthy but non-functioning tissue from the left eye and transplanted it into the right eye as a complete anatomical unit. The graft included the cornea, sclera, conjunctiva and, for the first time anywhere in the world, the central portion of the retina, the macula. By combining tissues from two damaged eyes, the team was able to reconstruct one eye that could see. The operation lasted almost six hours and was described as "very complex" by Professor Reibaldi.
- Elena loses sight after severe car crash; left optic nerve destroyed, right retina and cornea irreversibly damaged
- Doctors determine classic corneal transplant impossible due to destruction of stem cell area in right eye
- Surgeons harvest cornea, sclera, conjunctiva and macula from the healthy but non-functional left eye
- Complete anatomical unit grafted into right eye, including world-first macular transplantation
- Nearly six-hour operation completed at Molinette hospital, Turin
- Hospital announces successful procedure; initial results described as encouraging
Early results and expert reaction
The Molinette hospital announced the procedure on 27 July 2026. "We are now waiting to see to what extent the transplanted retina will be able to function, but the first results are encouraging," Reibaldi said in the hospital's statement. French Professor Michel Paques, head of ophthalmology at the Quinze-Vingts National Hospital in Paris and a retinal disease specialist, confirmed to AFP that the operation was a world first. He cautioned, however, that without published studies "it is not possible to objectively evaluate the technique" used by the Italian surgeons or to determine whether other patients could benefit from it.
What comes next
The degree of functional recovery in the transplanted retina remains to be assessed over time. The absence of peer-reviewed data means the broader applicability of the procedure is unknown. Elena's case establishes that a full-thickness graft combining anterior and posterior eye structures, including the macula, is surgically feasible in a human patient.
