Fluorophotometric Evaluation of the Blood-Aqueous Barrier Following Cataract Surgery

Chin, H S; Oh, J H; Do, S J; Oh, S J

Abstract

Fluorescein has been monitored in anterior chamber at 30 minutes or 60 minutes after intravenous injection of fluorescein and at 2 hour after oral administration of fluorescein as prevailing practice. However, the protocol for fluorescein detection should be reestablished to assess the fluorescein in anterior chamber. The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors reflecting the changes of blood-aqueous barrier according to the time course after cataract surgery. We also examined that 30 minutes or 60 minutes after injection of fluorescein is the resonable and representative time to assess the fluorescein in anterior chamber. The total number of subjects was 31 eyes form 23 patients with various ages from 45 to 65. Fluorescein was measured by ocular fluorophotometer at 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 1 hour, 80 minutes, 2 hours, 3 hours and 4 hours after intravenous injection of fluorescein. The same test was performed at preoperative day and postoperatively days 1, 7, 30, 60, 90. Post-operative data were analyzed with such factors reflecting the changes of blood-aque- ous barrier according to the time course as the distribution of peak time, the shift of peak time, half disappearance time and peak ratio. The peak time was randomly distributed in preoperative period and in post- operative periods. There was no shift of peak time in preoperative and postoperative periods. No difference was found between peak time in preoperative period and postoperative periods (P=0.541). The peak ratio was not different among in the preoperative period and in the postoperative days 7, 30, 60, 90. In contrast, the peak ratio in the postoperative day 1 was significantly higher than that of other periods [P=0.014). Although we couldn`t find any difference in data on the factors reflecting the changes of blood-aqueous barrier between preoperative period and post-operative periods. We concluded that the analysis of the blood-aqueous barrier with peak ratio and time factor should be studied furthermore to get the various informations of dynamic status of blood aqueous barrier after cataract surgery.