Preservation of enucleated porcine eyes for use in a wet laboratory

Purpose To design a method to preserve enucleated porcine eyes for use in a wet laboratory. Setting Laboratory of Experimental Ophthalmology, University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands. Design Experimental study. Methods Porcine eyes were preserved using 15 methods including salt solutions, anterior chamber infusion fluids, tap water, mineral water, air, and topical glycerol on the cornea. The central corneal thickness (CCT) was measured by A-scan ultrasound over 3 days. Differences between increases in CCT were compared using repeated-measures multivariate analyses of variance. Also, lenses from eyes preserved in tap water were extracted and the lens epithelial cell morphology was studied. Results There was a significant interaction between the preservation method and CCT over 3 days ( P Conclusions Of the 15 tested methods to preserve porcine eyes, tap water (mineral content 1.79 mmol/L) resulted in the least corneal swelling. It is not necessary to use more expensive anterior chamber infusion fluids or other salt solutions. Financial Disclosure Neither author has a financial or proprietary interest in any material or method mentioned.