An Introduction to Providing Rehabilitation to Individuals who Have Been Implanted with the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System

Duane R. Geruschat, Mark Rankin, and Jessy D. Dorn The general topic of regenerative vision has seen a lot of basic research over the past few decades, with the expectation that this re­ search will be increasing in coming years. Regenerative vision can include stem cells, gene therapy, and retinal chip implants. The eye diseases being studied for stem cell treat­ ment include age-related macular degenera­ tion (AMD), diabetes, retinitis pigmentosa, optic atrophy, and glaucoma (Mead et al., 2015). At the present time, stem-cell research is primarily concerned with the efficacy and safety of the treatment, which means that pro­ viders of rehabilitation have not been in­ volved because the products are not commer­ cially available. Gene therapy for the eye has concentrated on retinal diseases such as Lebers congenital amaurosis as well as cho­ roideremia. While the treatment is not com­ mercially available at this time, Spark Ther­ apeutics (Spark Therapeutics, 2017) has completed a phase 3 clinical trial with hu­ man subjects which received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel approval in October 2017. An excellent overview of gene therapy is provided by Petit, Khanna, and Punzo (2016). While there is an expectation that stem cells and gene therapy may provide more “natural” vision when compared to the light patterns provided by a retinal chip im­ plant, to date the only treatment option that is commercially approved is the latter. In the European Union, the Alpha IMS, developed by Retina Implant AG; the Iris II, developed by Pixium; and the Argus II, developed by Second Sight, have been approved, while in the United States and Canada, only the Argus II has been approved for commercial use.