UK: Eye of acid-attacked man saved by placenta transplant

A scientific feat. As reported by several Anglo-Saxon media outlets this Thursday, February 20, including the BBC , Paul Laskey, a 43-year-old Briton, saw his eye saved after a placenta donation from a woman who had just given birth.

The case began in 2023, when the 40-year-old was thrown in the face with battery acid while trying to confront his son's attacker on a street in Newcastle.

Admitted to hospital, he learned that he had lost almost all of the sight in his left eye, because the acid had penetrated and melted the inner and outer layers of his cornea.

Over the next eight months, the victim underwent two cornea transplants, as well as three amnion transplants, tissue taken from the inner wall of a donated placenta and transformed into small pieces. These tissues resemble transparent sheets affixed to the eyeball.

Thanks to these transplants, Paul's man's eye has been saved and the doctors caring for him are now planning to give him treatment that could potentially restore his sight.

"I am very grateful to the mother who chose to donate her placenta to help people like me who are at risk of losing their sight completely," he told the Guardian .

For his part, Francisco Figueiredo, consultant ophthalmologist at the Newcastle Eye Centre, who treated the patient, recalls that "amnion is widely used to treat a variety of ocular surface problems, and it is incredible to think that this is possible thanks to the generosity of a mother."

In fact, each donated placenta can correspond to 50 to 100 amnion grafts, also used to treat burns and other types of wounds.