Corneal Edema and Intraocular Pressure

TLDR

Earlier work reviewed the relationship between intraocular pressure and corneal edema, reporting animal experiments that linked IOP changes to corneal hydration. This study examined the long‑term effects of low, normal, or elevated intraocular pressure on corneal edema in human subjects with stable IOP. The authors observed that short‑term IOP variations affect epithelial and stromal hydration and transparency, but the cornea did not reach a new steady state, and they subsequently investigated.

Abstract

The literature pertaining to the relationship between intraocular pressure and edema of the cornea was reviewed in an earlier communication (Ytteborg and Dohlman).1Results of animal experiments were reported in the same paper. The immediate effect of varying the intraocular pressure on epithelial and stromal hydration, as well as on transparency, was observed. Raising or lowering of the intraocular pressure for a few hours had little effect onstromalhydration.Epithelialedema seemed to appear sooner and progress more rapidly as (a) the level of intraocular pressure was increased, and/or (b) stromal swelling increased after endothelial damage. The experiments were short so that the cornea, in most cases, did not have time to reach a new steady state of hydration. In the present paper, the long term effects were studied in human subjects having low, normal, or raised intraocular pressure, assumed to have remained steady for some time. Observations