Central Military Hospital, Clinic ofOphthalmology, Bucharest, Romania

Preliminary studies of rabbit corneal structure using laser beamsB.Carstocea, O.Gafencu, S.Apostol, M.Ionita;Central Military Hospital, Clinic ofOphthalmology, Bucharest, RomaniaM.L.Pascu, N.Moise, G.Popescu, M.Roman, S.Hogiu.Institute ofPhysics and Technology ofRadiation Devices, Laser Department, Bucharest, RomaniaABSTRACTA new method for cornea! structure investigation is reported. The light reflected from rabbit cornea is recordedby a video-camera so that the images of epitheliurn and endothelium are obtained. Because of the great magnificationfactor due to the cornea! curvature, the characteristics of the cells (shape, dimensions) can be directly visualized. Thetheoretical evaluation of the optical magnification fits reasonably well the experimental results for collimated laserbeams; therefore in the future it will be possible to determine with a good accuracy the corneal cell dimensions. Comealdiagnosis based on this method is discussed.1. INTRODUCTIONThe paper reports a laser method for cornea! structure investigation allowing to obtain images of cornea! layers(such as basal epithelium and endothelium) out ofwhich information about cell shapes and density may be extracted.Given the results obtained, one has to point out that ofparticular interest within cornea! structure is thestratified epithelium and endotheliurn. The stratified epithelium, unkeratinized includes 4-6 cellular layers; its thicknessis about 50 m and represents 10% ofthe corneal thickness. Morphologically, the epitheliurn contains threemonocellular layers out of which the basal layer consists of a single row of "tall' cells whose nuclei are orientedperpendicularly on the cornea! surface; a typical cell length is in the range 18 jtm -20 m and the diameter is 10 mThe endothelium is the most profound cornea! layer; it is direct contact with the aqueous humor and representsthe most important component to mentain cornea! transparency. At the other (towards the exterior ofthe eye) surface itis limited by Descemet membrane. The endothelium is a monocellular layer which for an young adult contains about5 x iO plat, regular hexagonal cells 5 m high and 18 im -20 t