Cataract after repeated daily in vivo exposure to ultraviolet radiation.

Epidemiological data indicate a correlation between lifelong exposure to ultraviolet radiation and cortical cataract. However, there is no quantitative experimental data on the effect of daily repeated in vivo exposures of the eye to UVR. Therefore, this experiment was designed to verify whether the dose additivity for UVR exposures holds through periods of time up to 30 d. Eighty rats were conditioned to a rat restrainer 5 d prior to exposure. All animals were divided into four exposure period groups of 1, 3, 10, and 30 d of exposure to UVR. Each exposure period group of 20 animals was randomly divided into five cumulated UVR dose subgroups. Eighteen-wk-old non-anesthetized albino Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed daily to UVR-300 nm for 15 min. One week after the last exposure, animals were sacrificed. The lenses were extracted for macroscopic imaging of dark-field anatomy, and degree of cataract was quantified by measurement of the intensity of forward lens light scattering. Maximum tolerable dose (MTD(2.3:16)), a statistically defined standard for sensitivity for the threshold for UVR cataract, was estimated for each exposure period. Exposed lenses developed cataract with varying appearance on the anterior surface. Single low doses of UVR accumulated to cause cataract during periods up to 30 d. MTD(2.3:16) for 1, 3, 10, and 30 d of repeated exposures was estimated to 4.70, 4.74, 4.80, and 6.00 kJ m(-2), respectively. In conclusion, the lens sensitivity to UVR-B for 18-wk-old Sprague-Dawley rats decreases with the increasing number of days being exposed.