[An experimental study of cellular response on implanted intraocular lens].

OBJECTIVE

To study the pathological changes and morphological features of cellular response on the implanted posterior chamber intraocular lens (IOL) in rabbits and discuss the mechanism of postoperative intraocular inflammatory response.

METHODS

9 adult pigmented rabbits were divided into three groups. IOLs were extracted on days 1, 7 and 14 after IOL implantation. Pathological changes on IOLs were observed with light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, and the number of inflammatory cells on IOLs were counted. The data were analyzed by using analysis of variance of SAS software.

RESULTS

There were inflammatory cells distributed over the entire IOL surface. In the mean time this study had clearly shown that morphological transformation of macrophages into spindle-shaped fibroblast-like cells took place on IOL, and phagocytic particles were in the cytoplasm of fibroblast-like cells, epithelioid cells and macrophages on the IOL.

CONCLUSIONS

The phagocytic ability of fibroblast-like cells, epithelioid cells and macrophages is relatively strong, and besides macrophages and eosinophils, there were many lymphocytic clusters on the IOL, suggesting that an active immune response exist on the IOL surface.