In groups 2, the right eyes received two drops of 3% acetylcysteine from day 1 (for one week), and one drop of 3% acetylcysteine and one drop of 0.1% dexamethasone from day 8 (beginning
of week 2). In group 3, the right eyes were treated with two drops of 3% acetylcysteine from day 1 (for two weeks), and with one drop of 3% acetylcysteine and one drop of 0.1% dexamethasone from day 15 (beginning of week 3). Control eyes in all groups received two drops of isotonic saline (NaCl 0.9%). All eyes were treated six times per day (once every two hours from 8 am to 6 pm) for 28 days. The wounds were stained by fluorescein at 4 pm every day in order to record by photography, then the defect Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical area (in mm2) was Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical calculated using the AutoCAD 2005 program. Healing was considered to be complete when no fluorescein stain uptake was visible with a cobalt light source. All eyes were thoroughly examined to assess the corneal haze at two and three months after the beginning of surgery. The daily healing was calculated for each eye using the following formula: [(Wound area on each day – wound area on the next day)/ wound area on that day]×100
Corneal haze was categorized as cornea without opacity, mild opacity, moderate opacity, or severe opacity based on light transmission Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and visibility of the fundus by the same examiner throughout the study. Every month for three months Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical from the beginning of the study two rabbits in each group were deeply anesthetized and both of their eyes were enucleated. The eyes were then immersed immediately in 10% buffered formalin, processed, and sectioned with a microtome at five µm thickness. The sections were stained with hematoxylin and eosin, and examined by light microscopy. They were examined for the epithelial changes (hypertrophy and hyperplasia), noevascularizations, stromal irregularity and edema, scarring of
stroma and cellular changes. Statistical Analysis The mean daily healing selleck kinase inhibitor against time (days) were fitted Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical to a linear regression equation and slope of healing curves were calculated for each group. The slopes of healing Adenosine for the control (those receiving saline) and treated (those receiving drugs) eyes of each group was compared using Wilcoxon signed ranks test. Similar test was also used to compare total healing time or corneal haze in the control and treated eyes of each of the three groups.18 Results Macroscopic Evaluation Analysis of 36 healing curves and their slopes revealed that the mean healing time or mean daily healing between of control and treatment eyes in group 1 (NAC+Dexa1) was significant (table 1 and figures 11–-3).3). These findings show that drug combinations increased the mean healing time and decreased mean daily healing compared with the control eyes (P<0.05). However, mean healing time or mean daily healing of the control and treatment eyes in group 2 (NAC+Dexa8) or group 3 (NAC+Dexa15) was not significant.