Aqueous flare measurement with laser flare-cell meter.

The laser flare-cell meter is a newly developed instrument designed to measure anterior chamber protein concentration in vivo. There was a linear relationship between photon count measured with this instrument and the concentration of bovine serum albumin. Measurements were taken in 29 eyes of normal subjects divided into two groups. Group 1 (15 eyes) had brown or dark irises and Group 2 (14 eyes) had blue or green irises. Photon counts obtained from Groups 1 and 2 were not significantly different. Aqueous protein concentrations estimated from standard curves were 15.7 and 18.6 mg/100 ml for Groups 1 and 2, respectively. On the other hand, the background value obtained from Group 2 was about twice the value from Group 1. These results indicate that background scattering has little effect on photon count. There was a good correlation between photon counts measured with the laser flare-cell meter and the evaluation of flare made by conventional microscopic observations. It was concluded that this instrument will be useful for clinical research studies.