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A new and quantitative method to evaluate the overall quality of corneal tissues for clinical applications and research testing
Author(s) -
PAREKH M
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
acta ophthalmologica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.534
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1755-3768
pISSN - 1755-375X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-3768.2012.2268.x
Subject(s) - cornea , ophthalmology , transparency (behavior) , medicine , trypan blue , significant difference , biomedical engineering , surgery , computer science , cell , biology , genetics , computer security
Abstract Purpose To demonstrate the validity of a new evaluation technique for measuring the overall quality of the cornea and check the efficacy of this quantitative approach in a comparative study of corneas preserved in CorneaCold® (new formulation) or Optisol‐GS. Methods 24 pairs of unsuitable corneas with intact epithelial layer and good morphology were collected. Right corneas were placed in CorneaCold® (Eurobio‐France) and left corneas in Optisol‐GS (Bausch&Lomb‐USA) from the same donor and vice‐versa for a 4 week comparative study. The study was divided into 2 phases, where phase 1 was open and phase 2 was blinded. Cells were stained with trypan blue and counted under an optical microscope to check the mortality and cell density. Difference between epithelial and endothelial layer was evaluated microscopically for thickness measurement. A transparency device was used for calculating the degree of transparency. All the above subjective parameters were converted to objective values for determining the overall quality of the cornea. Results The conversion to objective values from subjective analysis helped to evaluate the quality of corneas at different time intervals of preservation in different media. Students t‐test at week 2 (p=0.001) and week 4 (p=7.563E‐09) showed statistically better results when corneas were preserved in CorneaCold® rather than in Optisol‐GS. Conclusion The overall quality evaluation of cornea presented here is efficient, consistent and easy. This new technique could be useful for comparative studies and to value corneas for eyebanks, biobanks and research or transplantation purposes. CorneaCold® is a promising corneal preservation medium for hypothermic storage with slightly longer preservation time.Commercial interest