In a latest revolutionary development, medical science has achieved a milestone after successfully implanting eye implants in blind patients to restore their vision.

The new electronic implants, named "Prima system" or "Prima Visual Prosthesis," have helped people with incurable sight-loss to see again, opening up a potential new era in tackling blindness.

The latest implants for the blind patients include microchips that are thinner than human hair, to be attached at the back of the eye, giving patients a life-changing experience by restoring their sight.

A group of surgeons at the Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, who inserted prima microchips in patients, describes the results of the international trial as "astounding."

Moreover, the technology offers hope to people with an advanced form of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), also called Geographic Atrophy (GA), which affects more than 250,000 people in the UK and five million people worldwide.

In AMD or GA condition, which is more common in older people, cells in a tiny area of the retina at the back of the eye gradually become damaged and die with age, resulting in blurred or distorted central vision, often including color blindness.

For the research published in the New England Journal of Medicine,38 patients with geographic atrophy GA from five European countries took part in the trial of the Prima implant, which California Biotech Science Corporation makes.

Doctors who implanted the sim card-shaped prosthetic devices in patients said that the trial found 84% of participants were once again able to read letters, numbers and words after being fitted with the Prima device implants.

Mahi Muqit, a senior consultant at Moorfields Eye Hospital, explains that Blind patients are actually able to have meaningful central vision restoration, which has never been done before. 

“In the history of artificial vision, this represents a new era,” said Mahi Muqit,

"Getting back the ability to read is a major improvement in their quality of life, as it lifts their mood and helps to restore their confidence and independence," Muqit added.

Following the successful trial, a 70-year-old patient Sheila Irvine from Wiltshire expressed that her vision has improved dramatically and without the implant she was utterly unable to read anything.

Moreover, the doctors reported that when they filmed Sheila reading an eye chart at Moorfields Hospital, she did not make a single error.

According to the eye specialists, Sheila began losing her central vision more than 30 years ago, due to loss of cells in the retina. She describes her vision as like having two black discs in each eye.

Sheila, after having ‘electronic implants,’ said that her experience was just "out of this world" to be able to read and do crosswords again.

"It's beautiful, wonderful. It gives me such pleasure," said Sheila.

How does the electronic eye-implant, ‘Prima device’ work?

The Prima device, a super-thin microchip that is just 2mm by 2mm in size, is inserted under the center of the eye’s retina in a procedure known as a ‘vitrectomy’.

To help them see and write, patients at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London were given augmented reality glasses, containing a video camera connected to a small computer, which they attached to their waistband.

The video camera also included a zoom feature to make text bigger and easier to read.

In addition to that, the patients also used the AR glasses to focus and scan the object in the projected image that they want to read.

The glasses project the scenes as an infrared beam across the chip, which activates the device.

Moreover, the artificial intelligence in the waistband computer processes the information. It converts it into an electrical signal, which passes through the cells in the retina and optic nerve into the brain.

After a year, this process equated to an improvement of 25 letters, or five lines, on an eye chart, which is a massive revolutionary development in medical science.