Regenerative medicine is a process of reconstruction of living and functional but damaged tissues where cells and / or tissues are used for the treatment of tissues or organs that lose their function due to aging, damage, acquired or congenital diseases. This broad field needs multidisciplinary collaboration, including biomaterial science, cell/tissue biology, transplantation science and cellular therapy. Regenerative medicine leads many studies to find solutions to many diseases today. Some of the applications mentioned in this section require permission from the Ministry of Health prior to the application.
1- Umbilical Cord serum
It is a condition that manifests itself with dry eye, inadequate tear production, or poor quality of tears. Dry eye can accompany many systemic diseases, and it is a condition that can give symptoms on its own. In addition, dry eye can manifest at the same time as inflammatory eye diseases or after inflammatory eye disease.
Dry eye disease can have serious consequences, especially on the transparent layer of the eye, leading to conditions that can cause vision loss. Today, artificial tear drops and gels, eye drops containing steroids, autologous serum, contact lens applications, punctal plugs are used as treatment.
Among blood preparations, it is used topically in various ocular diseases in serum ophthalmology. Like blood serum, umbilical cord blood serum contains highly essential tear components, growth factors, neurotrophic factors, vitamin A, fibronectin, prealbumin and fat.
The umbilical cord serum can provide essential nutrients for epithelial regeneration and facilitate proliferation, migration and differentiation of the ocular surface epithelium. Studies on the treatment of eye drops made from umbilical cord serum on severe eye dryness with or without Sjogren's syndrome, ocular complications due to graft-versus-host disease, persistent epithelial defects, erosions after corneal refraction surgery, ocular chemical burns and surface problems in the treatment of various ocular surface diseases including neurotrophic keratopathy have started to be done.
Topical application of umbilical cord blood does not cause adverse effects on the eye because its serum components contain growth factors and tear components rather than cells derived from umbilical cord tissue.
2- Stem cell applications
Mesenchymal stem cells (MDG) have become a promising tool for cell therapy in regenerative medicine. These are easy to obtain, exhibit strong differentiation capabilities and offer immune suppressing properties. Clinical treatments are currently ongoing to treat a range of diseases that cannot be treated by traditional therapies, using MDG as both a culture-expanded allogenic and autologous. Numerous studies in many diseases, such as retinitis pigemntosa (nyctalopia), macular degeneration and a chemical burn with a corneal scar, have been devoted to the use of MDG with very promising results. Furthermore, the application made by taking stem cells from the cornea border for corneal injuries, which is the outermost layer, has been put into routine use effectively in corneal healing.
Amniotic membrane (AM) applications
The amniotic membrane is a membrane harvested from the placental tissue obtained during elective cesarean section in a sterile environment. Those from whom the membrane is received is scanned for infectious diseases and treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics immediately after AM collection.
AM is a very important form of treatment for the cornea healing, which is the outermost transparent layer of the eye. AM contains epithelial growth factors that can increase epithelial healing and proliferation. It includes epidermal growth factor (EGF), hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and base fi broblast growth factor (bFGF), as well as protease inhibitors. It has strong anti-inflammatory, anti-angiogenesis and anti-scarring properties. As AM heals, it acts as a physical barrier to protect the conjunctival and corneal epithelium and reduces pain caused by rubbing the eyelids on the surface. In addition, the AM base membrane promotes epithelial growth through cell migration, adhesion and differentiation, while inhibiting cell migration, as well as cell death. However, the Aphysical properties, such as surface regularization and scaffolding properties, are also very important for corneal healing.
