The Effects of Experimental X-Radiation on the Cornea

Research on the Eyes of X-Ray-Irradiated Mice with and without Pharmacological Protection

“…Rados and Schinz [33] also noted corneal damage due to irradiation; they maintained, however, that the crystal line lens is radiation resistant, as they could not observe any morphological modifica tions in it. We do not agree with them and our opinion is further supported by Blodi's [7,8] observations. The results of our in vestigations agree with those obtained by Poppe [30][31][32] and further American in vestigators according to whom corneal dam age is not limited to the epithelium but ex tends to all the corneal structures, evolving either towards complete restitutio ad integrum or sometimes towards the formation of a vascularized corneal leukoma.…”

“…Blodi [7,8] tested the protective action of cysteine and reported that this sub stance has a protective action when admin istered i.v. and s.c. immediately after irra diation.…”

“…The protective effect of cysteine, viewed in the light of modern de velopments, suggests that it is attained by in tervening in the enzymatic tissue metabo lism damaged by the action of the X-rays. According to Blodi [7,8], glutathione has an identical effect.…”

Specular microscopic study of X-ray-irradiated rabbit cornea

“…[12][13][14] Serious injury such as corneal ulcer was produced by doses over 2000 rad (20 Gy). [13][14][15] In the present attempt to elucidate the effect of moderate ionizing radiation on the cornea, we selected a dose of 20 Gy in order to avoid serious corneal damages. In the current study, slit-lamp microscopic examinations revealed no abnormal findings in the rabbit cornea irradiated with 20 Gy of X-rays.…”

“…Most of the previous studies evaluated the corneal epithelium because of its high sensitivity to ionizing radiation. [12][13][14][15] Moreover, histopathological techniques were mainly used in those studies.…”