Duke Eye Center Implants Cell-Based Therapy for MacTel

Duke Eye Center announced that its team is the first at a US academic medical center to implant a new commercially available cell-based gene therapy for macular telangiectasia type 2 (MacTel). No treatment was available to slow the progression of MacTel until the FDA approved revakinagene taroretcel-lwey in March 2025. Lejla Vajzovic, MD, a professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at Duke University School of Medicine, led the surgical team that performed the procedure. The implant contains more than 200,000 living cells within a permeable membrane that releases protein into the eye wall.

“Unfortunately, we cannot reverse the degeneration that’s already happened,” said Dr. Vajzovic, “but with this therapy, we can help decrease further degeneration of the photoreceptors and help patients retain the vision they do have.”

The procedure was performed on Yvette Crawley, a 71-year-old patient who had first noticed changes to her vision about 11 years earlier. She was diagnosed with MacTel in 2021.