[The disjunction zone in the slit-image-photograph of the human lens in eye diseases (author's transl)]

Abstract

Standardised slit-image-photographs of the clear human lens in 78 eyes with wide angle glaucoma, 29 eyes with uveitis and 35 eyes after an operation of a retinal detachment were evaluated by microdensitometry and compared with clear lenses of 178 eyes without eye diseases. Most significant alterations were observed in the anterior disjunction zone. Its thickness was increased in all these diseases with the exception of the glaucoma eyes treated with derivates of phenylephrine and/or cholinesteraseinhibitors. Under these conditions the disjunction zone disappeared. The alterations of the lens cortex and of the nucleus of the lens with respect to the thickness and its density were mostly accelerations of the normal aging process and only glaucoma eyes were partly in contrast to this process. Thickening of the anterior disjunction zone may be combined with a thickening of the whole lens and vice versa.