Clinical results and in vitro characterization of cornea limbal epithelial stem cells cultured in autologous serum

Slow-cycling limbal epithelial stem cells (LESCs) are responsible for continuously renewing the entire corneal epithelium. Ocular burns, infectious and inflammatory diseases can all cause chronic scaring, decreased vision and severe pain due to limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD) in the cornea. Center for Eye Research / Department of Ophthalmology, Oslo University Hospital is offering transplantation of autologous ex vivo expanded human corneal epithelial tissue to patients with LSCD. However, even though many of these patients gain significant life quality by means of increased vision and reduced pain by this treatment, in our recent published retrospective case series evaluating our surgical technique, only 56% of the patients had a persisting improvement in subjective symptoms/objective findings. Further clinical experience will reveal in which clinical situations this treatment modality is most likely to succeed – and fail. In parallel, we aim to develop a novel, improved protocol for enrichment of viable LESCs for clinical transplantation to further improve success rate of the treatment. Clinical results as well as results of translational research for improving graft quality will be presented.