A number of medical teams in many parts of the world are launching pioneering gene therapies for children with hereditary deafness, and although they are currently relevant to a very small number of patients, their approval represents a potentially revolutionary advance that could “change the rules of the game.”
The latest development in this field is that an eleven-year-old boy who has suffered from “severe deafness” since birth was able, after undergoing a new genetic treatment, to hear “for the first time in his life,” a hospital in the American city of Philadelphia announced on Tuesday.
John Germiller, director of clinical research in the hospital's Department of Otolaryngology, explained that the gene therapy that was applied to the patient “aims to correct a very rare gene defect.”
After about four months, Issam's hearing improved to the point that he now only suffers from mild to moderate hearing loss.
But the boy may never be able to speak, because the part of the brain designated for acquiring speech stops working around the age of five.
A study published on Thursday in the medical journal The Lancet revealed that a similar treatment conducted in China for six deaf children enabled five of them to regain their hearing.
Co-author of the study and researcher at Massachusetts Eye & Air Hospital in the United States, Cheng Yi Chen, explained, “Some of these children are now able to conduct a normal conversation and speak on the phone.”
Two of these children did not have ear implants before the operation, so they could not hear or speak at all. Today, they have regained their hearing.
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