Perfusate effects upon resistance to aqueous humor outflow in the rhesus monkey eye. A comparison of glutathione-bicarbonate Ringer's solution to pooled aqueous humor as perfusate.

In vivo perfusion of the anterior chamber of normal rhesus monkeys with pooled rhesus aqueous humor gives an initial total facility of 0.48 +/- 0.08 (+/-S.E.) microliter/min/mm Hg. With continued intermittent perfusion for 2 hr this value increased only slightly to 0.57 +/- 0.10 microliter/min/mm Hg. Perfusion of the paired eyes of the same monkeys with glutathionebicarbonate Ringer's solution gives an initial total facility of 0.55 +/- 0.08 microliter/min/mm Hg. This value increased to 1.21 +/- 0.15 microliter/min/mm Hg with continued intermittent perfusion. Thus aqueous is a satisfactory perfusate for experiments requiring prolonged stability of the eye, but glutathione-bicarbonate Ringer's solution is not a satisfactory substitute perfusate. Neither addition of physiologic amounts of ascorbic acid to the buffered salt solution nor careful modification of the pH of the solution to the physiologic level prevented the increase of total facility it produces when used as a perfusate. A reversible, fast-phased small-magnitude increase in total facility was noted in eyes perfused with either perfusate. It is speculated this is caused by neural mechanisms for intraocular pressure control.