COVID-19 pandemic impact on ocular trauma in a tertiary hospital.

Aim: To analyze the impact of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the presentation and characteristics of patients hospitalized for ocular trauma in a tertiary hospital in China between 2019 and 2020.

Methods: A retrospective case study was designed to collect information on all cases of ocular trauma in a tertiary hospital from 2019 to 2020 and compare differences in inpatients' data (age, sex, admission vision acuity, type of diagnosis, hospital stays, mechanism of injury and location of injury).

Results: The total number of patients admitted to the Ophthalmology Department was 883 (mean 73.

Experimental Study of the Biological Properties of Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Retinal Progenitor Cells.

Retinal degenerative diseases are among the leading causes of blindness worldwide, and cell replacement is considered as a promising therapeutic. However, the resources of seed cells are scarce. To further explore this type of therapy, we adopted a culture system that could harvest a substantial quantity of retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) within a relatively short period of time.

c-Kit⁺ cells isolated from human fetal retinas represent a new population of retinal progenitor cells.

Definitive surface markers for retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) are still lacking. Therefore, we sorted c-Kit(+) and stage-specific embryonic antigen-4(-) (SSEA4(-)) retinal cells for further biological characterization. RPCs were isolated from human fetal retinas (gestational age of 12-14 weeks).