科学家发明眼球创可贴 能愈合眼部伤口的隐形眼镜

Treating wounds on a part of the body as delicate as the eyeball isn't easy, but scientists have developed an innovative new approach: a therapeutic contact lens that can act as a bandage for damaged eyes.

要处理人体中像眼球这样脆弱部位上的伤口绝非易事，不过科学家已研发出一种创新疗法：治疗用隐形眼镜，它对受伤的眼睛来说相当于创可贴。

This is no ordinary contact lens, because it's made up of donor cells left over from regular corneal transplants.

这不是普通的隐形眼镜，因为它由常规角膜移植遗留下来的供体细胞组成。

These special limbal mesenchymal stromal cells help to encourage the injured eye to repair its wounds itself.

这些特殊的角膜缘间充质间质细胞有助于刺激受创眼部进行自我修复。

According to the researchers, a contact lens bandage could be in place within hours of a patient arriving at hospital with eye damage.

研究人员称，眼部受伤的患者到医院数小时内，就能用上隐形眼镜创可贴。

It's likely to be cheaper and easier to apply than current treatments too.

这种方法可能比现有疗法更便宜、更易应用。

"Based upon preliminary data we believe that the donor cells release a range of wound-healing factors that encourage repair of the eye's surface," says one of the researchers, Damien Harkin from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia.

研究人员之一、来自澳大利亚昆士兰科技大学的达米安·哈金表示：“根据初步数据，我们认为供体细胞释放出一系列伤口愈合因子，可以促进眼睛表面自我修复。”

"Our therapy could provide welcome relief for patients suffering from chronic conditions such as corneal ulcers and persistent surface defects that haven't responded to conventional therapies."

“我们的疗法可以缓解患有慢性疾病的患者的症状，例如角膜溃疡和持续表面缺陷，传统疗法对这些患者收效甚微。”

These bandage contact lenses will need to go through an extensive set of clinical trials before they get approved, and the researchers say it could take several years for them to become available to general public.

这些创可贴隐形眼镜在获得批准前还需进行大量临床试验，研究人员表示，可能还需要好几年的时间公众才能用上这种“眼球创可贴”。