Experimental posterior penetrating eye injury in the rabbit. I. Method of production and natural history.

A technique has been developed which produces an experimental posterior penetrating eye injury that reproducibly results in traction retinal detachment in rabbit eyes. The standard injury is an incision through the pars plana with vitreous prolapse and incarceration; the wound is then carefully closed with microsurgical techniques. It appears that blood in the vitreous is an essential factor in the development of vitreous traction and of traction retinal detachment. The model, which has been successfully transferred to Rhesus monkey eyes, is considered useful for further histological, electromicroscopical, electrophysiological, and ultrasound studies of posterior penetrating injuries of the eye. Our immediate goal is to assess in a controlled experiment whether pars plana vitrectomy can interrupt the sequence of events leading to traction retinal detachment after a posterior penetrating injury.