Home Diseases and Conditions Vision Impairment

Vision Impairment

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Development Stage

Early Stage

Focused ultrasound research is in the laboratory phase and is not yet available for patients.

Clinical Trials

Focused ultrasound for this condition is being researched in clinical trials.

International Approval

Focused ultrasound is approved to treat this condition outside the US. Patients can seek commercial treatment at participating international sites.

FDA Approved

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved focus ultrasound for this condition. Patients can seek commercial treatment at participating sites.

Early Stage

Clinical Trials

International

FDA Approved

Focused ultrasound research for this condition is in the laboratory phase and is not yet available for patients.

Focused Ultrasound Therapy

Focused ultrasound is a rapidly evolving, therapeutic technology that could transform the quality of life and decrease the cost of care for patients with vision impairment. This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasound energy precisely and accurately on targets deep in the body without damaging surrounding normal tissue. 

How it Works 
Where the beams converge, focused ultrasound produces several therapeutic effects that are being evaluated. This is an involved process and typically includes prosthetic devices such as a retina, optic nerve and cortex. There has been work done in rat models using both high and low intensity focused ultrasound to stimulate vision. The mechanism of action is not clear, but the combination of focused ultrasound with the retinal prosthesis has given hope that one day in the future this will be a viable option for those who have lost their sight. While significant work has been accomplished, there is still much to be done before this technology will be widely available. 

Advantages

  • Focused ultrasound is non-invasive, so it does not carry added concerns like surgical wound healing or infection.  
  • Focused ultrasound can reach the desired target without damaging surrounding tissue. 
  • It can be repeated, if necessary. 

Clinical Trials 

At the present time, there are no clinical trials recruiting patients for focused ultrasound treatment of vision impairment.  

The Foundation updates these pages regularly, but with the increasing number of clinical trials, we want to be sure that our audience has the latest information available. Therefore, we also added the website search information for the above trials. If you click here, it will take you to the latest information available from https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/. 

Regulatory Approval and Reimbursement  

Focused ultrasound treatment for vision impairment is not yet approved by regulatory bodies or covered by medical insurance companies. 

Notable Papers 

Lu G, Gong C, Sun Y, Qian X, Rajendran Nair DS, Li R, Zeng Y, Ji J, Zhang J, Kang H, Jiang L, Chen J, Chang CF, Thomas BB, Humayun MS, Zhou Q . Noninvasive imaging-guided ultrasonic neurostimulation with arbitrary 2D patterns and its application for high-quality vision restoration. Nat Commun. 2024 May 27;15(1):4481. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-48683-6. PMID: 38802397  

Badadhe JD, Roh H, Lee BC, Kim JH, Im M. Ultrasound stimulation for non-invasive visual prostheses. Front Cell Neurosci. 2022 Aug 3;16:971148. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2022.971148. eCollection 2022. PMID: 35990889 

Italiano ML, Guo T, Lovell NH, Tsai D. Improving the spatial resolution of artificial vision using midget retinal ganglion cell populations modeled at the human fovea. J Neural Eng. 2022 Jun 8;19(3). doi: 10.1088/1741-2552/ac72c2. Italiano ML, Guo T, Lovell NH, Tsai D.PMID: 35609556 

Click here for additional references from PubMed.