Some aspects of cataract morphology: A SEM-study

✍ Scribed by W. L. Jongebloed; F. Dijk; J. G. F. Worst

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 597 KB
• Volume: 70
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0012-4486
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00154448

✦ Synopsis

Two lenses from patients of very advanced age with senile cataracts were processed for SEM, fractured equatorially, sputtered with Au and examined by SEM.

In the cross-fracture various areas could be observed. Although the overall structure of the lens-fibres appeared to be intact, higher magnifications showed that the len-fibre material had changed into a brittle structure, with either a granular appearance or a fibrillar character.

At other places clearly recrystallization of lens-fibre proteins had taken place, with the formation of finger-like substructures, sometimes organized into plate-like structures or running parallel to each other in a kind of undulating pattern.

Between the various areas of chemically changed lens-fibre material certain 'canal-like' areas were found with cellular structures, the so-called 'waterclefts' or 'Wasserspalten'. Structures which, together with the chemical change in the lens proteins, account for the dramatic change in light dispersion.