AIMS To assess the potential of electrospun poly(lactide-co-glycolide) membranes to provide a biodegradable cell carrier system for limbal epithelial cells. MATERIAL & METHODS 50:50 poly(lactide-co-glycolide) scaffolds were spun, sterilized and seeded with primary rabbit limbal epithelial cells. Cells were cultured on the scaffolds for 2 weeks and then examined by confocal microscopy, cryosec...

AIM To investigate human oral mucosal fibroblasts (HOMF) and human limbal fibroblasts (HLF) as alternatives to murine 3T3 feeder fibroblasts currently used to support epithelial cell expansion for the treatment of limbal epithelial stem cell deficiency. METHODS HLF and HOMF were compared with 3T3s for their ability to support the culture of human limbal epithelial cells and human oral mucosal...

Limbal relaxing incisions are one of the more commonly performed procedures with phacoemulsification to correct preexisting astigmatism during cataract surgery. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect and stability of limbal relaxing incisions in reducing preexisting astigmatism at the time of phacoemulsification. The study included 10 eyes in 12 patients who underwent limbal relaxing i...

Simple Limbal Epithelial Transplantation (SLET) has been proposed recently for care of total Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency (LSCD) secondary to alkali burn of cornea [1]. Reportedly it combines advantages of conjunctival limbal auto grafting [2] and cultivated limbal epithelial transplantation [3] by being a single-stage, affordable procedure utilizing minimal donor tissue. Besides, it is also rep...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Certain degenerative eye conditions occur predominantly nasally, at the limbal region, and are associated with solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR) induced damage. The relative contribution to the in vivo ocular flux of (a) the reflection of UVR incident on the skin of the nose onto the nasal limbus, and (b) the focusing of UVR incident on the temporal side of the cornea onto the n...

Cultured limbal tissue transplants have become widely used over the last decade as a treatment for limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD). While the number of patients afflicted with LSCD in Australia and New Zealand is considered to be relatively low, the impact of this disease on quality of life is so severe that the potential efficacy of cultured transplants has necessitated investigation. We pr...

Periostin is a non-structural matricellular protein. Little is known about periostin in human limbal stem cells (LSCs). This study was to explore the unique expression pattern and functional role of periostin in maintaining the properties of human LSCs. Fresh donor corneal tissues were used to make cryosections for evaluation of periostin expression on ex vivo tissues. Primary human limbal epit...

OBJECTIVE To examine whether amniotic membrane transplantation (AMT), in preparing the perilimbal stroma, enhances the success of allograft limbal transplantation (ALT). METHODS Thirty-one eyes of 26 consecutive patients had cytologically proven limbal deficiency resulting from chemical burns (14 eyes); Stevens-Johnson syndrome, toxic epidermal necrolysis, or pseudopemphigoid (5 eyes); contac...

The purpose of this investigation was to analyze the proliferative behavior of rabbit corneal epithelium and establish if any particular region was preferentially involved in epithelial maintenance. [3H]-thymidine was injected intravitreally into both normal eyes and eyes with partially scraped corneal epithelium. Semithin sections of the anterior segment were evaluated by quantitative autoradi...

We describe a novel surgical technique for pterygium removal taking advantage of the properties of amniotic membrane and limbal epithelial stem cells. A total of 10 eyes underwent pterygium excision with amniotic membrane coverage of the bare sclera and placement of pieces of limbal epithelium in a linear fashion in the affected limbal area covered by a second amniotic membrane using fibrin glu...