Around 150,000 people in France wear an ocular prosthesis.
This aesthetic device, formerly called a “glass eye”, is a resin half-sphere which reproduces the color and appearance of the valid eye, whose movements it follows.
To be as natural and realistic as possible, the prostheses are custom-made and hand-painted by an ocularist (there are barely fifty of them in France).
But
“
the process requires specialized skills and time, for a result whose quality is variable ,
”
underline the authors of a study
published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications
.
Led by Johann Reinhard, from the Darmstadt Institute for Technological Research (Germany), the researchers have developed an automated process for manufacturing ocular prostheses.
The objective is to reduce waiting times for patients, while offering “artificial eyes” adapted to each individual’s body shape.
Also read: New molecules, lasers, implants, gene therapies... Spectacular progress in ophthalmology
The approach is based…
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