Laboratorio de Óptica, Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Óptica y Nanofísica, Universidad de Murcia, Campus de Espinardo (Ed. 34), 30100 Murcia, Spain.
Dpto. Biología Celular, Histología y Farmacología, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Valladolid, 47005 Valladolid, Spain.
Biomed Res Int. 2019 Jan 10;2019:3860498. doi: 10.1155/2019/3860498. eCollection 2019.
Corneal cross-linking (CXL) is a surgical procedure able to modify corneal biomechanics and stabilize keratoconus progression. Although it is known that CXL produces changes in corneal collagen distribution, these are still a topic of discussion. Here we quantitatively compare the corneal stroma architecture between two animal models four weeks after conventional CXL treatment, with second harmonic generation (SHG) imaging microscopy and the structure tensor (ST). The healing stage and the stroma recovery were also analyzed by means of histological sections. Results show that the CXL effects depend on the initial arrangement of the corneal collagen. While the treatment increases the order in corneas with a low level of initial organization, corneas presenting a fairly regular pattern are hardly affected. Histological samples showed active keratocytes in anterior and middle stroma, what means that the recovery is still in progress. The combination of SHG imaging and the ST is able to objectively discriminate the changes suffered by the collagen arrangement after the CXL treatment, whose effectiveness depends on the initial organization of the collagen fibers within the corneal stroma.
角膜交联术（CXL）是一种能够改变角膜生物力学并稳定圆锥角膜进展的手术。尽管已知 CXL 会改变角膜胶原的分布，但这仍然是一个讨论的话题。在这里，我们使用二次谐波产生（SHG）成像显微镜和结构张量（ST），定量比较了两种动物模型在传统 CXL 治疗后四周的角膜基质结构。还通过组织学切片分析了愈合阶段和基质恢复情况。结果表明，CXL 效应取决于角膜胶原的初始排列。虽然该治疗会增加初始组织程度较低的角膜的有序性，但对排列较规则的角膜几乎没有影响。组织学样本显示前部和中部基质中有活跃的角膜细胞，这意味着恢复仍在进行中。SHG 成像和 ST 的结合能够客观地区分 CXL 治疗后胶原排列所经历的变化，其有效性取决于角膜基质中胶原纤维的初始组织程度。
