Intraoperative and post operative treatment with 5-fluorouracil and mitomycin-c: long term effects in vivo on subconjunctival and scleral fibroblasts.

Rabbits undergoing full thickness glaucoma filtering surgery were exposed to one of 4 treatments. Group 1 received intraoperative distilled water, group 2 received intraoperative mitomycin-c 0.2 mg/ml for 5 minutes, group 3 received 5 post operative injections of 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) 5 mg in 0.1 ml, and group 4 received intraoperative 5-FU 50 mg/ml followed by 5 post operative injections of 5-FU. 30 days after the operation tissue biopsies were taken from the subconjunctival and scleral tissue at the treated area and 90 and 180 degrees from the treated area. The biopsies were then placed in tissue culture media and the outgrowths quantitated. The fibroblast outgrowths from all areas did not differ significantly from each other except for the outgrowths from the areas directly treated with mitomycin 0.2 mg/ml which were significantly smaller. In addition then cells were morphologically abnormal although there were foci of normal cells which appeared to be growing from localised areas in the tissue biopsies. The outgrowths from the areas 90 and 180 degrees from the treated area were normal. Intraoperative treatments with mitomycin-c result in long term inhibition of fibroblast proliferation limited to the treated area, when compared with intraoperative and postoperative treatment with 5-FU. Failure of filtration surgery in eyes treated with intraoperative mitomycin may in part be due to unaffected cells reproliferating.