The Change of the Permeability of the Rabbit Corneal Endothelium in Various Storage Time

ABSTRACT

It is well known that a successive corneal graft depends primarily on the corneal endothelial viability The standard eye-bank method for the preserving donor's corneal tissue for transplantation is moist storage at 4 degrees C. The purpose of this study is to determine the change in permeabilty of the rabbit corneal endothelium for the purpose of evaluating the possible change in the endothelia] viability after varying duration of storage time ranging from 6 hours to 7 days in a moist chamber at 4 degrees C. To fully describe the permeability, the author measured the two main coefficient, hydraulic conductivity (Lp) and reflection coefficient(sigma(NaCI)). In this study, the hydraulic conductivity of the rabbit corneal endothelium increased graduaIly during the first 3 days of storage time and then progressively decreased. Reflection coefficient was 0.4 on the first and second day and then decreased progressively. Both the hydraulic conductivity and the reflection coefficient showed a marked decrease on the 7th day of storage. Therefore, it is clear that the rabbit corneal endothelial cells almost lost their viability and function as physical barrier mechanism on the 7th day of storage. A comparison of the result of this permeability with those of other methods (N B T corneal endothelial staining and electron microscopic etc.) was discussed.