Nick Harufeh is one of the first patients in the U.S. to undergo a new type of stem cell therapy to treat severe corneal damage. He is pictured here after the procedure. (Photo by Nick Harufeh)
On Independence Day 2020, Nick Harufeh enjoyed fireworks outside his aunt's house in California.
Suddenly, in an instant, the fun was over.
The errant firework veered and exploded on the ground near Harufeh, sending shrapnel into the cornea of his left eye. The incident left 23-year-old Harufeh, who had been pursuing a career as a commercial pilot for six years, blind in one eye.
“My dad was right outside [the house], and it was dark, so he couldn’t fully comprehend what had happened,” Harufeh told Live Science. “I was like, ‘I don’t think I can see out of my left eye.’”
At the hospital, doctors initially feared that Harufeh's eye was completely damaged and would need to be removed. However, after removing debris, a specialist discovered that, other than the cornea, the rest of Harufeh's eye was intact.
Over the next few months of treatment, he endured numerous nighttime awakenings for eye drops, painkillers, and several surgeries, including removal of debris and an unsuccessful attempt at eyelid reconstruction.
“It was a difficult few months,” Harufeh said. “I didn’t leave the house, I didn’t tell anyone what happened because I felt a little bit embarrassed – the eyes are the window to the soul, and I felt like my identity had just disappeared.”
Nick spent six years studying piloting to pursue his dream when a fireworks injury left him blind in one eye.
Later that year, Harufeh's mother told him about an advertisement she had seen at Mass Eye and Ear, a Harvard-affiliated teaching hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. The hospital was seeking volunteers for a clinical trial of a new stem cell therapy for patients with irreversible corneal damage.
An experimental therapy known as cultured autologous limbal epithelial cell transplantation (CALEC) involves extracting stem cells from a patient’s healthy eye, growing them in the lab into sheets of cells, and then transplanting them into the damaged eye. Once implanted, the new sheets of cells form a surface on which normal tissue can grow.
Harufeh decided to move to Boston with his mother to participate in the trial, which was scheduled to begin in January 2021.
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Sourse: www.livescience.com
