굴절 시력 치료를 위한 전기기계 각막 재형성

• 전기기계적 재성형(EMR)은 비수술적 시력 교정을 위해 각막 곡률을 변경할 수 있는 전기화학적 방법입니다.

EMR은 전기화학적 펄스를 사용하여 콜라겐 매트릭스를 양성자화하고, 이온 결합을 파괴하여 일시적인 기계적 리모델링을 가능하게 합니다.

• 재평형은 지속적인 형태 변화를 초래합니다.

토끼 눈에 대한 연구에서 EMR이 투명도나 콜라겐 구조에 영향을 주지 않으면서 각막 곡률을 효과적으로 변화시켜 간단하고 저렴한 시력 교정 치료법이 될 수 있음을 시사했습니다.


The corneal stroma consists of orthogonally stacked collagen-fibril lamellae that determine the shape of the cornea and provide most of the refractive power of the eye. We have applied electromechanical reshaping (EMR), an electrochemical platform for remodeling cartilage and other semirigid tissues, to change the curvature of the cornea as a potential procedure for nonsurgical vision correction. EMR relies on short electrochemical pulses to electrolyze water, with subsequent diffusion of protons into the extracellular matrix of collagenous tissues; protonation of immobilized anions within this matrix disrupts the ionic-bonding network, leaving the tissue transiently responsive to mechanical remodeling. Re-equilibration to physiological pH restores the ionic matrix, resulting in persistent shape change of the tissue. Using ex vivo rabbit eyes, we demonstrate here the controlled change of corneal curvature over a wide range of refractive powers with no loss of optical transparency. Optical coherence tomography (OCT), combined with second-harmonic generation (SHG) and confocal microscopy, establish that EMR enables extremely fine control of corneal contouring while maintaining the underlying macromolecular collagen structure and stromal cellular viability, positioning electrochemical vision therapy as a potentially simple and ultralow-cost modality for correcting routine refractive errors.

Keywords: cornea; electrochemistry; optical coherence tomography (OCT); stress-relaxation; vision refraction.

full text
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsbiomaterials.2c01177

#시력회복수술 #신기술 #상용화기대