A Surgical Cryoprobe for Targeted Transcorneal Freezing and Endothelial Cell Removal

Figure 6

TEM of corneal epithelium following a 3 sec transcorneal freeze injury using a 2.4 mm diameter/concave profile cryoprobe on the rabbit cornea in vivo. (a) An endothelial cell (Endo) at 24 hrs postfreeze in a region peripheral to the freeze-injured area appeared morphologically normal, with normal organelles and nucleus (n). It adhered to Descemet’s membrane (DM). (b) Closer to the region below the cryoprobe surface application, there were clear signs of cell damage including the destruction of the cell membrane, while even more centrally, (c) the cell damage was more extreme revealing a bare Descemet’s membrane, consistent with the SEM analysis (Figure 3). (d) One month after the transcorneal freezing was performed, the central region of the inner cornea contained fairly normal endothelial cells that were sometimes accompanied by extracellular matrix material (white arrowheads) in the area posterior to Descemet’s membrane. Scale bars, 2 μm.

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