New gene therapy helps Cincinnati Children’s doctors restore hearing for children born deaf
By Daisy Kershaw
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CINCINNATI, Ohio (WLWT) — A major medical triumph right here in Cincinnati; a new gene therapy is now giving some children born deaf the ability to hear.
One family seeing the benefits came all the way to Cincinnati from Central Asia.
Two young siblings were born with profound hearing loss caused by a genetic condition, a breakthrough at Cincinnati Children’s helping change their lives forever.
“I was literally at one of our outlying clinics, and this family came in with two cute and adorable kids and asked if I could help them hear,” said Dr. John Greinwald, an otolaryngology attending at Cincinnati Children’s.
Unable to get treatment back home for their two young children born deaf, this family from Uzbekistan researched options and found Dr. Greinwald in Cincinnati.
“Basically, looked me up, stalked me on the internet and saw… That I’m an expert in the field of molecular genetics of deafness,” said Dr. Greinwald.
Brother Abdu and sister Sumaya became patients in this breakthrough clinical trial.
Doctors here performed one of the world’s first bilateral gene therapy injections.
Within weeks, both could hear without any implants or devices.
“This is groundbreaking. The genetic therapy is predicted to last a lifetime,” said Dr. Greinwald.
Dr. Greinwald explaining their approach.
“The approach for this is very similar to a standard cochlear implant. We go from behind the ear through the bone, and we go down to the opening of the cochlea… And we dose them and give them a gene therapy product,” said Dr. Greinwald, “There have been very, very few complications. And both of our patients did phenomenally well.”
Not only did it work, but Dr. also Greinwald says the children’s hearing shows signs of continued improvement.
“This has taken a village. This is hundreds of researchers working on this, hundreds of folks on the clinical side doing this kind of work. But it is a, it is kind of a medical miracle,” says Dr. Greinwald.
It’s important to know every case of hearing loss is different, and this treatment is only for a specific genetic condition.
However, Dr. Greinwald says he believes this breakthrough will lead to other gene therapies in our lifetime that could help treat a wide range of hearing loss.
To learn more about their work and this clinical trial CLICK HERE.
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