England’s first artificial cornea transplant hailed a success

Published

11 months ago

June 4, 2024

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A 91-year-old man has become the first person in England to be fitted with a ground-breaking artificial cornea.

Cecil ‘John’ Farley, 91, said his sight was now improving thanks to the procedure, which he underwent after 15 years of suffering from problems with his eyes.

The cornea is the clear outer layer at the front of the eyeball – and is described by the NHS as the “window to the eye”.

A person can suffer from vision problems and pain if the thin transparent covering is damaged by disease or injury – with those affected often left facing a long wait for a human transplant.

However, it is hoped that the artificial device, called EndoArt, will slash waiting times, ease pressure on the NHS and eliminate the risk of the human body rejecting corneas received from an organ donor.

Mr Farley, from Chobham in Surrey, said he was overjoyed by the transplant – in his right eye – because it meant he could continue to see his 83-year-old wife Elizabeth.

He said: “I can still see my wife after 63 years of marriage, we can just carry on as normal and live life as fully as we can.

“It makes your life fuller when your eyes work properly – you don’t realise how debilitating it is until it happens to you.”

Before the surgery, Mr Farley had no vision in his right eye – but his sight has slowly been improving ever since the procedure in February.

He said: “It has made a great difference to my sight. It was very blurred and I couldn’t distinguish a face.

“Now I can see better with it, the brighter the light the better. It’s coming along slowly – they said it could take up to a year.”

The artificial cornea has been compared to a contact lens. The device, which replaces the inner part of the cornea, is surgically attached to the eye by a single stitch and is put in place with a gas bubble.

Patients could see major impact

One of the biggest advantages of using artificial corneas is the huge reduction in waiting time for the procedure. It means patients on the elective backlog who risk further deterioration in their vision can be seen months earlier than they would waiting for a cornea transplant from an organ donor.

But at the moment the artificial cornea operation can only be carried out on patients who meet the “complex eye” criteria. These include patients whose previous human cornea transplant has failed.

Consultant ophthalmologist Tom Poole, who carried out the procedure, is confident the surgery can be rolled out to “virgin eye” patients in the future. These are patients with no previous history of eye surgery.

Mr Poole told me the international ophthalmology community was growing increasingly confident with artificial corneas which are relatively easy to make and their production could be scaled up quite easily.

He and his colleague Hanbin Lee at Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust have already carried out three more operations since February.

The latest tests on Mr Farley suggest the procedure has been a success. Three more patients have been identified and are listed for surgery.

Only 200 people worldwide, including Mr Farley, have been fitted with an EndoArt so far, but there are hopes it can be more widely rolled out.

Organic cornea transplants usually come from deceased donors. A total of 4,719 were donated to the NHS in 2022/23, according to the latest available figures.

Consultant ophthalmologist Thomas Poole, from Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust in Surrey, which carried out the procedure, described the artificial cornea as a “great advancement”.

He said there had been fears that Mr Farley was “kind of getting to [his] last hope” after a previous human transplant failed.

Mr Poole said: “I had a very frank discussion with him before and I said: ‘Look, your graft has failed, you’re back on the waiting list. Because your other eye sees quite well, you’re not a high priority on the waiting list and you could be waiting for another year’.

“He’s in his 90s now and said ‘I just can’t wait that long. Is there anything else?’ And so this sprung to mind.

“I had just read a publication on very good reports from this artificial graft and it was that that made me think actually, maybe we could use this for John.”

Mr Poole and his colleague Hanbin Lee have now successfully given four patients artificial corneas in the last two months and the initial results have shown an improvement in vision.

He added: “Looking forward to the future, I think this may end up replacing human corneas for certain types of corneal graft patients.

“In maybe 10 or 20 years’ time – this may become the norm where we don’t need a human cornea, and we can just take one out of the box.”

Mr Farley, a former flooring company owner, said that once his sight is restored he hopes to do practical tasks like repairing a watch.

However, for now, he is content “pottering about”.

UK

Liverpool win Premier League title to equal Man Utd’s record

Published

56 mins ago

April 27, 2025

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Liverpool win Premier League title to equal Man Utd's record

Liverpool have won the Premier League title after a 5-1 victory over Tottenham at Anfield.

Arne Slot’s men did it in impressive style, turning over Spurs in a convincing win.

It was a rocky start for the Reds after Dominic Solanke put the north London side ahead.

However, fortunes quickly changed in the first half as Liverpool scored three times without a response.

In the second half, it took until the 63rd minute for Mohamed Salah to make it 4-1 before a fifth followed.

The Reds have won the title in manager Arne Slot’s first season in charge, and move level with fierce rivals Manchester United on 20 league championships.

But it makes them arguably the most successful English club ever as they have won more European Cup or Champions League titles.

Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk told Sky Sports after the final whistle: “It’s special and it’s something that we don’t take for granted. It’s amazing.

“A lot of emotions before the game, during the whole week, but we got the job done and we (are) truly deserved champions of England. (Liverpool is) the most beautiful club in the world and I think we deserve all of this. Let’s enjoy the next couple of weeks and let it sink in.”

Slot took over last summer from Jurgen Klopp, who guided them to their previous and maiden Premier League title triumph in 2020, when the COVID-19 lockdown saw matches played behind closed doors.

He is the first Dutch manager to win the Premier League and the fifth man to do so in a debut campaign after Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti, Manuel Pellegrini, and Antonio Conte.

Speaking to Sky Sports he said: “They [the players] did an outstanding job today. The main job was to win. Everyone said we had got it already. But we had to make sure and we got over the line.”

Several players, including Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, and Mohamed Salah, played leading roles in both the 2025 and 2020 campaigns.

Van Dijk and Salah recently signed new contracts extending their careers at the club.

Liverpool will have to wait until the final game of the season – at home to Crystal Palace on 25 May – to be presented with the Premier League trophy.

It will be the first time the club’s fans will have seen their side lift the top-flight title in person since 1990.

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UK

Protesters throw powder on Tower Bridge during London Marathon

Published

7 hours ago

April 27, 2025

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Protesters throw powder on Tower Bridge during London Marathon

Two pro-Palestinian demonstrators have thrown red powder on Tower Bridge – just moments before leading runners in the London Marathon went past.

The protesters were arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance and remain in custody, said the Metropolitan Police.

A video shared by Youth Demand, which is calling for a trade embargo on Israel, shows two people jumping over a barrier that separates spectators from the race course.

The pair, wearing t-shirts that say “Youth Demand: Stop Arming Israel”, are then seen standing in the middle of the road on the bridge.

They throw red powder in the air as an official marathon car goes past displaying the race time.

A motorbike with a cameraman on board continues along the route, while a second motorbike stops and one of the riders gets off and pushes the pair out of the way, just before the men’s elite runners pass.

Several police officers then jump over the barrier and detain the pair, the footage shows.

There appeared to be no impact on the marathon.

More than 56,000 participants were expected to take part in the 26.2-mile race through the capital.

Sabastian Sawe of Kenya won the men’s elite race in a time of two hours, two minutes and 27 seconds, while Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa shattered the women’s-only world record in two hours, 15 minutes and 50 seconds.

Assefa beat the previous best of two hours, 16 minutes and 16 seconds set last year in London by Kenyan Peres Jepchirchir.

The Metropolitan Police said in a statement: “At around 10.38am, two protesters from Youth Demand jumped over barriers at Tower Bridge and threw red paint on to the road.

“Marathon event staff intervened to remove the protesters from the path of the men’s elite race which was able to pass unobstructed.”

The force added that they were “quickly supported by police officers who arrested the protesters on suspicion of causing a public nuisance”.

The Met said the paint “appeared to be chalk-based” and was not expected to “present a hazard to runners yet to pass this point”.

UK

Kemi Badenoch does not rule out local coalitions with Reform after next week’s council elections

Published

11 hours ago

April 27, 2025

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Kemi Badenoch does not rule out local coalitions with Reform after next week's council elections

Kemi Badenoch has not ruled out forming coalitions at a local level with Reform after the council elections next week.

Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, the Conservative leader did however categorically rule out a pact with Nigel Farage’s party on a national level.

“I am not going into any coalition with Nigel Farage… read my lips,” she said.

However, she did not deny that deals could be struck with Reform at a local level, arguing that some councils might be under no overall control and in that case, “you have to do what is right for your local area”.

“You look at the moment, we are in coalition with Liberal Democrats, with independents,” she said. “We’ve been in coalition with Labour before at local government level.

“They [councillors] have to look at who the people are that they’re going into coalition with and see how they can deliver for local people.”

She added: “What I don’t want to hear is talks of stitch-ups or people planning things before the results are out. They have to do what is right for their communities.”

A total of 23 councils are up for grabs when voters go to the polls on Thursday 1 May – mostly in places that were once deemed Tory shires, until last year’s general election.

It includes 14 county councils, all but two of which have been Conservative-controlled, as well as eight unitary authorities, all but one of which are Tory.

Ms Badenoch has set expectations low for the Tories, suggesting they could lose all the councils they are contesting.

The last time this set of councils were up for election was in 2021, when the Conservative Party was led by Boris Johnson who was riding high from the COVID vaccine bounce.

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