Vitreous body oxygen tension following experimental branch retinal vein obstruction.

We obstructed either temporal or nasal superior and inferior retinal veins on one eye of rhesus monkeys with xenon photocoagulation. This resulted in large areas of nonperfused retina adjacent to normal retina in the same eye. Intraretinal neovascularization (new vessels in the retina) developed following the absorption of retinal hemorrhage and edema. We used microelectrodes to measure and compare vitreous body oxygen tensions over the nonperfused and over the normal retinal areas. There was no significant difference between the oxygen tension measurements in the same eye.