Prostaglandins and the eye

Abstract

Prostaglandins are present in the iris and cilliary body and are synthesized in these tissues. Prostaglandins are released into the aqueous following a variety of insults to the eye, and the results of such trauma can be reproduced by the application of prostaglandins to the eye. Prostaglandins have been detected in the aqueous of patients suffering from endogenous uveitis and it is probable that the anti-inflammatory effects of drugs such as aspirin and indomethacin are due to their prostaglandin antagonistic actions. little is known yet concerning the physiological role of prostaglandins in the eye, but their association with adrenergic mechanisms, which is now being studied, may produce some clarification. The relationship between prostaglandins and antidromic stimulation of sensory nerves and the so-called axon reflex is still obscure and it would be ironic if the miosis following stimulation of the Vth nerve, which was the starting-point for the discovery of irin and its subsequent identification with prostaglandins, is not in fact due to prostaglandin but to some other chemical mediator.