Overview
- The surgical team at Ospedale Molinette in Turin carried out the operation on Sunday, July 26, 2026, and reported immediate engraftment of the transplanted tissues with early signs of visual recovery for the 67-year-old patient.
- Surgeons removed an anatomical block containing cornea, sclera, conjunctiva and, for the first time worldwide, the macula from the patient’s left eye and transplanted it into her right eye during a nearly six-hour procedure.
- The patient had been blind for more than five years after a crash left the left optic nerve irreversibly damaged while the right eye suffered maculopathy and corneal stem‑cell loss, a contrast that motivated the autologous transfer.
- Early functional gains progressed from light perception to black-and-white vision and then some color and object recognition, with the patient reportedly identifying her son, a banknote and her guide dog; clinicians warn long-term retinal integration remains uncertain.
- The operation was a multidisciplinary public-hospital effort that builds on a prior anterior-segment transplant at the same centre and will now move into close follow-up, rehabilitation and research to test how well the transplanted macula connects to the brain.