Background/Aims. To report the safety and efficacy of strontium (Sr(90)) beta radiotherapy as adjuvant treatment for conjunctival melanoma. Methods. A retrospective cohort study was undertaken from 1999 to 2007 of all patients who underwent Sr(90) beta radiotherapy for incompletely excised conjunctival melanoma. Failure of treatment was defined as recurrence of a conjunctival melanoma at the sa...

A frequently cited theory for the pathogenesis of neovascularization in diabetic retinopathy is that retinal hypoxia and/or ischemia release a factor which stimulates neovascularization. To the authors' knowledge, there is no direct in vivo evidence in the human proving this theory. One hundred and twenty-two diabetic subjects were studied to see whether worsening retinopathy was associated wit...

A 65-year old, farm worker female with a six weeks right eye (RE) discomfort, tearing and progressive eyelid swelling was referred to our clinic. Past ophthalmic and systemic history was uneventful. She presented painless, considerable RE superior eyelid edema, bilateral best-corrected visual acuity of 0.9, normal ocular movement and pupil reflex. Slit lamp examination revealed conjunctival hyp...

The regenerated epithelium derived from limbal epithelium was histologically and biochemically compared with epithelia regenerated from corneal and bulbar conjunctival epithelia. The histologic results indicated that regenerated epithelium of limbal origin increased in thickness with time after healing and showed no goblet cell appearance on the cornea. This suggests that regenerated epithelium...

OBJECTIVES To confirm the downregulation of PTGER4 mRNA in the conjunctiva of Stevens-Johnson syndrome/toxic epidermal necrolysis (SJS/TEN) and ocular cicatricial pemphigoid (OCP) patients and to examine the expression of its EP4 protein in the conjunctival epithelium of patients with various ocular surface disorders. DESIGN Case-control study. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS We performed quantita...

AIMS The aims were to compare a novel conjunctival mould used to assist the delivery of intravitreal drugs to a conventional technique with respect to patient, surgeon and cost benefit. METHODS A prospective review of 200 intravitreal injections was undertaken, 100 using a 'conventional' freehand technique (group 1) and 100 using a novel conjunctival mould (group 2). Intraoperative visual ana...

AIM To evaluate the efficacy of topical 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) alone, without concurrent surgery or radiotherapy, for the treatment of conjunctival squamous cell carcinoma. METHODS Eight patients affected by conjunctival squamous cell carcinoma (three recurrent cases, three incompletely excised, and two untreated cases) were treated with 1% 5-FU eye drops. Topical 1% 5-FU was administered four...

PURPOSE Submucosal fibrosis due to excessive accumulation of collagens is an important histologic feature in the pathogenesis of ocular cicatricial pemphigoid (OCP). Heat shock protein 47 (HSP47), a collagen-binding protein, plays an important role in the biosynthesis of procollagens. In the present study, we examined the role of HSP47 in conjunctival scarring in patients with OCP. METHODS Bi...

PURPOSE Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a pleiotropic, proinflammatory cytokine that mediates various immunoinflammatory processes. Ocular cicatricial pemphigoid (OCP) is an autoimmune disease in which affected conjunctivae show features of an immunoinflammatory disease. In this study, the role of MIF in the pathogenesis of OCP was examined. METHODS The expression of MIF in co...