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Background: We describe a case of traumatic ocular endophthalmitis caused by Nocardia kruczakiae after vegetable trauma in an immunocompetent child. Findings: A 5-year-old boy suffered from a trauma with a palm tree leaflet. Two months later, he was diagnosed with traumatic infectious uveitis and intumescent cataract with anterior capsule rupture. Intensive treatment with systemic and topical vancomycin, ceftazidime and methylprednisolone began. After 1 month, he underwent phacoemulsification with intraocular lens implantation (IOL). After some episodes of reactivation, he was diagnosed with traumatic nocardial endophthalmitis from aqueous humour samples. Several operations and specific antibiotic therapy resolved the infection. Conclusions: In cases of traumatic endophthalmitis and several recurrences, it is extremely useful to make an etiologic diagnosis in order to treat the patient with specific antibiotics. This research was supported by grant MPY 1446/11-TE from the Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias, Instituto de Salud Carlos III. Sí

Histocompatibility Matching in Penetrating Keratoplasty -- Acute A nterior Uveitis and HLA-B27: 2 What's New? -- What Can the Aqueous Humour Tell Us About Uveitis? -- Is Diabetic Retinopathy an Inflammatory Disease? Inflammation as a Stimulus for Vascular Leakage and Proliferati on -- Steroid Sensitivity in Uveitis -- Multiple Sclerosis and Uveitis -- Inflammation in Age-Related Macular Degeneration: What is the Evidence? -- Age-Related Macular Degeneration: Immunological Factors in the Pathogenesis and Therapeutic Consequences -- Patterns of Retinal Vascular Involvement in the Diagnosis of Retinal Vasculitis -- Masquerade Syndromes.

Fluorescein was first made synthetically by the German chemist, Adolf Ritter von Baeyer in 1871 [1]. Baeyer (1835–1917) won the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1905. It was only 10 years after this discovery that the German physician Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915, winner of the Nobel prize for medicine in 1908) introduced fluorescein into diagnostic medicine [14]. Ehrlich injected fluorescein and examined the dependence of the production of aqueous humour in the eye on intraocular pressure. Since then, the use of fluorescent dyes has spread to many fields of medicine.

Especially in traumatology, it is necessary to have techniques and substances available in both primary and secondary wound treatment that prevent the eyeball from collapsing, separate the individual tissues from each other — as far as is necessary — and provide optimal protection from any additional irritation.

An ocular hypotensive syndrome may result from chronically recurring uveitis and it may lead to a considerable reduction of vision. Under certain conditions the intraocular pressure may be raised for several months in these cases by intraocular injections of Healon®. These conditions, as defined after analysis of a case observed by us, are a pathological increase in outflow resistance of the trabecular system and a reduction, though not arrest, of the production of aqueous humour (Korner et al. 1985, 1986).

In this chapter we present a thorough review of those aspects of the ophthalmic literature which concern the three principal factors affecting the volume of the eye: vascular dynamics; aqueous humour dynamics; and the viscoelastic properties of the corneo-scleral shell.

A two-part study was conducted in which post-mortem changes were investigated in the baboon outflow system. It was found that the mesh-work cells closest to the chamber angle were particularly susceptible to post-mortem advance. Post-mortem vacuoles developed in the endothelium of Schlemm’s canal and by light microscopy these structures could be mistaken for giant vacuoles. On the other hand it was shown by electron microscopy that the giant vacuoles which have been implicated in the transendothelial transfer of aqueous humour and post-mortem vacuoles were distinct and separate entities.

3 mJ Q-Switched Nd:YAG laser anterior capsulotomies with 30 burns in circular arrangement were performed on 10 rabbits 20 eyes. Intraocular pressure measurements, anterior segment fluorescent angiography, aqueous humour protein amount determination, optic microscopy and electron microscopy observation were examined at different intervals after operation. Discussion on the relationship between intraoccular pressure and other measurement and observation mentioned above were presented.

Prostaglandin E1 (PGE1 (25 μg) was applied topically to the eyes of albino rabbits, and lanthanum was used as an electron microscopic tracer to study possible vascular permeability changes in the iris of these eyes. Lanthanum was injected directly into the blood circulation 15 min after application of the PG, and the eyes were enucleated 30 or 60 min later. PGE1 was found to induce increased vascular permeability. Heavy deposits of the tracer were found in the walls of iridial venules, especially between the endothelium and its basement lamina. The highest concentration of lanthanum was found in close relation to the interendothelial clefts. Occasionally, gaps between neighbouring endothelial cells were observed. In control eyes, not treated with PG, no extravasation of the tracer was found. The study indicates that the iridial blood vessels contribute to the production of the plasmoid aqueous humour induced by PGE1 in the rabbit eye.

Neural control of intraocular parameters has not been considered in the above computations, and this may explain the inadequacy of the model’s predictions in the pathological range. Little is known about the neural control mechanisms in the eye, although drugs are administered in the clinical treatment of glaucoma with varying degrees of success. Such drugs may act either directly on the eye or secondarily through altered neural control. The neural pathways controlling the intraocular pressure are largely unknown, and one must assume them in a preliminary study.

Interest in the metabolism of xylose by the lens stems from the finding, by Darby and Day in 1940, that this sugar when fed to weanling rats, rapidly causes cataract (an opaque lens). It had earlier been shown by Mitchell and Dodge in 1935 that galactose was similarly cataractogenic, and the third type of these so-called “sugar”cataracts is brought about by rendering an animal permanently diabetic. L-arabinose, when fed simultaneously with D-galactose, will hasten the onset of cataract (Patterson, 1955), although this sugar has not itself been shown to be cataractogenic. In 1959 it was shown that all these four sugars (D-xylose, D-galactose, D-glucose and L-arabinose) were reduced by an aldose reductase in the lens to the corresponding polyhydric alcohol, the co-enzyme being reduced NADP (van Heyningen, 1959a and b, 1962). All have the same configuration of carbon atoms 1–3