Protective barrier effect of the posterior lens capsule in exogenous bacterial endophthalmitis--an experimental primate study.

Ten eyes of five Rhesus monkeys underwent extracapsular lens extraction. The right eye of each monkey was allowed to retain an intact posterior capsule. The left eye of each monkey had a wide primary capsulectomy with minimal anterior vitrectomy. In order to exclude operative contamination, we waited 2 to 3 weeks later to challenge the eyes with bacteria. Seventy-two hours after anterior chamber injection of equal numbers of Staphylococcus aureus, diagnostic cultures were obtained from the anterior chamber and vitreous and correlated with the clinical findings. Injection of 10,000 S. aureus produced culture-positive endophthalmitis in eyes that had undergone posterior capsulectomy, but it failed to produce endophthalmitis in fellow eyes with intact posterior capsules. This suggest that a significant barrier effect against the development of bacterial endophthalmitis exists in the eyes with intact posterior capsules.