EFFECT OF LEUKOPENIA ON EXPERIMENTAL POSTTRAUMATIC RETINAL-DETACHMENT

Macrophages are invariably present in the intraocular membranes of pat ients with traumatic proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR). There are two sources from which these macrophages could be recruited: adjacent tissues and the systemic circulation. In the study described herein, t he role of circulating white blood cells and monocytes in experimental , traumatic PVR was studied. The circulating white blood cells of 20 r abbits were depleted by intravenous injection of strontium-89. Posteri or perforating eye injury with subsequent intravitreal injection of au tologous whole blood or autologous activated macrophages was then perf ormed on these leukopenic animals. The experiments demonstrated that s evere bone marrow depression reduced significantly the incidence of re tinal detachments in eyes receiving whole blood, and reduced the sever ity of retinal detachments in eyes injected with activated macrophages . An association between the degree of leukopenia, monocytopenia, and protection from retinal detachment was demonstrated. These results sup port the hypothesis that macrophage infiltration is an important compo nent of intraocular cellular proliferation, but does not exclude the r ole of other types of white blood cells in the pathogenesis of PVR.