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Dropping the Eye Patch
Eyedrops may be better than eye patches for treating lazy eye, the most common form of vision impairment in children, according to research at the University of Minnesota and elsewhere. Placing a patch over the stronger eye to force the weaker one to strengthen itself has long been an effective treatment for the condition, clinically known as amblyopia. Many children, however, become frustrated with the patch and have trouble keeping it on. The 400-child study found that atropine drops given once a day were statistically as effective as an eye patch in treating lazy eye. The drops temporarily blur vision in the strong eye. Although children given the drops had their weak eye improve more slowly than those with a patch, at six months the difference between patch and drops essentially disappeared. Researchers will continue to follow the children into 2003 to assess long-term difference in the treatments, if any. In amblyopia, the brain favors one eye for a variety of reasons, leading to poor vision in the other eye. As many as 3 percent of children have some degree of lazy eye, and about 75 percent of those treated as children overcome the condition. If not treated in childhood, however, it can become a lifelong impairment. The study was published in the March issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology.

More Stem Cell Advances
University of Minnesota researchers published two more promising adult stem cell studies over the winter. In one, stem cells helped reverse short-term stroke damage in rats, while in the other, blood vessels were created from stem cells, which could aid in cancer treatments or healing wounds. The University’s Stem Cell Institute is a national leader in research on what they call multipotent adult progenitor cells (MAPCs), which are found in bone marrow and can become many types of cells.

The stroke research, led by Dr. Walter Low, a neurosurgery professor, involved creating stroke injury to the brain of the rats, impairing their use of limbs. A week after the stroke damage, researchers implanted MAPCs. Within weeks, the rats had regained almost entirely normal use of their limbs. The MAPCs in that study had not been driven toward becoming brain cells, but were infused in the brain in purified form. Researchers will now attempt to find out whether the MAPCs secreted a protein that directed surrounding brain cells to repair the damage, as is suspected, or whether the new cells turned into brain cells themselves to repair the damage. Further study will also focus on whether stroke damage remains reversible after longer periods and whether it might be possible to use a person’s own stem cells in the therapy. The study was published in the March 2002 issue of the journal Experimental Neuroscience.

In the blood vessel research, Dr, Catherine Verfaillie, director of the Stem Cell Institute, and her colleagues showed that MAPCs that were directed toward becoming blood vessel cells in the lab could be successfully transplanted into mice and contribute to the growth of new blood vessels. Specific experiments succeeded in repairing blood vessels around wounds and in spurring vessel growth around cancerous tumors. The results could lead to new treatments against tumors or be used to repair many kinds of wounds or as a treatment for arteriosclerosis, a hardening of the arteries. The results were published in the February 1, 2002, issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation .