Human lens epithelium in normal and cataractous lenses.

Epithelial cell appearance and cell size were studied in intact, unfixed, and unstained human lenses. Ten normal and 24 cryoextracted senile or presenile cataractous lenses, all with subcapsular cataract, were examined. The cell size of the transparent normal lenses showed little variation. However, in the cataractous lenses, a wide range was found in mean cell size of different lenses and variation in cell size within the individual lenses. No correlation was observed between cell size and degree of subcapsular cataract or combination of cataract type.