Healon® in Chemical Burns of the Eye and for Protection of the Eye Surface

Abstract

Quite often there are problems with severe chemical and thermal burns of the eyes if the epithelia of the damaged surface no longer regenerate. In clinical practice one finds oneself over and over again faced with the fact that therapeutic possibilities are limited. In addition to an opacity of the whole cornea, additional difficulties are caused by ischemia of the contiguous sciera. After severe chemical burns there is an inflammatory reaction with leucocytes invading the burnt tissue. At a later stage there is vascularisation of the cornea starting at the limbus with a central ulceration which perforates or later leads to severe scarring. Therapy with the surface-protecting drug Healon® did not result from animal experiments but from severe clinical cases, where the cornea had to be protected. It had been known from the literature that this material can protect the surface by a molecular film and, furthermore, penetrate into the intercellular matrix of the bared corneal stroma. In this way it prevents the invasion of leucocytes.