Cornea implants made from pig skin restored eyesight in a small clinical trial

human implants, which can be mass-produced and stored up to two years and thereby reach even more people with vision problems,” says Neil Lagali, an ophthalmologist at Linköping University and one of the study’s authors, in a statement. “This gets us around the problem of shortage of donated corneal tissue and access to other treatments for eye diseases.”

To develop the cornea transplants, the researchers used medical-grade collagen derived from pig skin to create a transparent hydrogel. Surgeons then made a tiny incision in each patient’s cornea and inserted the hydrogel, which helped thicken and reshape the cornea to restore its functionality. This surgical method is also an improvement on traditional transplant procedures, during which surgeons remove the patient’s original cornea and stitch the new one into place. The 30-minute hydrogel procedure was also much faster than a typical cornea transplant, which can take several hours.

Patients in the clinical trial used immunosuppressive eyedrops for just eight weeks after the procedure, compared to the several years of medication that follows traditional transplants. Their bodies did not reject the bioengineered corneas.

“The concept that we could have bioengineered corneas would be revolutionary,” says Marian Macsai, an ophthalmologist at the University of Chicago who was not involved in the study, to NBC News’ Aria Bendix. “It would potentially eliminate the risk of rejection and potentially make corneas available to patients worldwide.”

Though it’s too soon to tell whether the bioengineered corneas could help patients suffering from other conditions, the technology is showing early signs of promise for those living with keratoconus, which affects one in 2,000 people worldwide, per Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Next, researchers hope to trial the corneas in a study with 100 or more people, then continue toward regulatory approval, NBC News reports. They also hope to experiment with patients who have other eye conditions.

In the long run, their goal is to make bioengineered corneas available in parts of the world with limited resources. Though there is no waiting list for cornea transplants in the United States, per the nonprofit group Eversight, that’s not the case elsewhere. A 2016 study found that some 12.7 million people around the world are in need of cornea transplants—and the researchers want to help reduce that backlog.

“We’ve made significant efforts to ensure that our invention will be widely available and affordable by all and not just by the wealthy,” says Mehrdad Rafat, a biomedical engineer at Linköping University, CEO of LinkoCare Life Sciences AB and one of the study’s authors, in a statement. “That’s why this technology can be used in all parts of the world.”