Little bigger than a grain of sand, this is officially the world’s smallest medical implant. Yet the tiny device is set to transform treatment for tens of thousands in the UK who are at risk of blindness due to glaucoma.
The £900 i-Stent – a hollow metal tube about ten times smaller than a grain of rice – is so minuscule it can only be implanted in the eye using a high-powered microscope.
Once in place, it drains off harmful fluid that accumulates in the eyeball and which puts pressure on the optic nerve, potentially causing irreversible vision loss.
The £900 i-stent can be inserted into the eye,allowing harmful fluid to drain off
The stents are only the size of a grain of sand and take 30 minutes to insert into a patient
Hundreds of patients have already benefited from the implant, which takes less than 30 minutes to fit. Many people have since been able to discard the drops they took up to three times a day to keep their condition under control.
Thousands more could now be in line for the microscopic implants after the devices were approved by the NHS spending watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
Eye surgeons are hopeful the procedure could revolutionise glaucoma treatment. ‘It’s early days but so far we have been getting very good results,’ says consultant ophthalmologist and glaucoma specialist Madhu Nagar, who has pioneered use of the i-Stent at Mid Yorks Hospitals NHS Trust. ‘I have done about 100 cases and between 60 and 70 per cent have seen a significant drop in pressure.’
Glaucoma affects at least 600,000 people in the UK and is responsible for more than ten per cent of blindness cases. One person in 50 over the age of 40 has early signs of the condition, although the vast majority go undetected at this stage. That figure rises to one in ten of those aged over 75. The number of people affected is expected to increase in the next few years due to an ageing population.
The stent is made of titanium and can provide a simple and permanent solution to glaucoma
In a healthy eye, fluids packed with important nutrients flow through the eye to ‘feed’ the various structures within, and then drain away naturally. In glaucoma sufferers, the drainage channels become blocked
