At a Glance Transcorneal electrical stimulation (TES) appears to improve retinal function in patients with RP

This may be due to TES increasing expression of neurotrophins and angiogenic signaling molecules

Well-designed proof-of-concept clinical trials have demonstrated that TES is safe and can improve vision in patients with RP. Initial results from a larger study have confirmed the favorable safety profile of TES

If TES manages to make it to the clinic, it represents something that’s increasingly rare in medicine: the ability to treat the (previously) untreatable. Electrical stimulation of neural tissue is not exactly a new idea. Luigi Galvani was making frogs legs contract with electricity in 1792 (1), and in 1873, Henri Dor touted electrical stimulation as a remedy for all kinds of disorders – including eye diseases like retinitis pigmentosa (RP), glaucoma, amblyopia and optic atrophy (2). It didn’t last – therapeutic electrical stimulation was soon forgotten as more conventional fields of medicine advanced.

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About the Author

Florian Gekeler

Florian Gekeler is a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Tübingen in southern Germany, and Head of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Klinikum Stuttgart (Katharinenhospital). Besides retinal stimulation, his main research interests are retinal implants and high altitude ophthalmology. If he is in the hospital, he prefers to be in the operating theater, if not, he tries to be in the mountains as often as possible.