Effects on the corneal endothelium of anterior chamber reconstituents instilled during intracapsular cataract extraction.

Intracapsular cataract extractions with a standardized technique were performed on a series of patients. The loss of corneal endothelial cells was found to vary predictably with the material instilled into the eye to reconstitute the anterior chamber. Reconstitution with Miochol was associated with minimal constant cell loss, while reconstitution with air resulted in greater cell loss in the early than in the late postoperative period. The additional instillation of phenylephrine enhanced the endothelial cell loss in both the early and late postoperative periods. In the ideal operation, attention should be paid not only to be amount of corneal manipulation but also to the material chosen to reconstitute the anterior chamber.