The effects of injections of cultured fibroblasts into the rabbit vitreous.

A comparison was made between rabbit's eyes which had an intravitreal injection of either 400,000 autologous or homologous skin fibroblasts. The follow-up period was up to 6 months with autologous and 10 weeks with homologous cells. The evaluation involved the clinical assessment of membrane formation, retinal detachment and anterior segment inflammation. In addition, a detailed histological, electron microscopic and autoradiographic study was made of membrane development and changes in the surrounding tissue. Clinical evaluations revealed little difference between the two models. However, on the basis of macroscopic and microscopic examination, homologous cells produced more extensive detachments and more pronounced retinal gliosis. Plasma cells were evident in the choroid 6 weeks after homologous fibroblast injection, but they were not associated to any appreciable extent with the autologous model. Fibrovascular proliferation from around the optic nerve head made a major contribution to the formation of membranes in the experiments with homologous fibroblasts but not those using the autologous cells.