Although there are available therapies for acute-moderate ocular surface diseases, there is a lack of effective therapy for the treatment of more chronic-severe inflammatory diseases. These chronic-severe diseases are characterized for the possibility of corneal damage, that may lead to a sight-threatening outcome.
Inflammatory ocular surface diseases are very prevalent among the global population. Patients demand more efficacious, new treatments for their diseases and, at the same time, governments and pharmaceutical companies are concerned about the cost of the research needed to develop new drugs. The increasing use of three-dimensional models has shown their utility in decreasing research costs by providing more reliable results and reducing the use of animals in research.
Although there are available therapies for acute-moderate ocular surface diseases, there is a lack of effective therapy for the treatment of more chronic-severe inflammatory diseases. These diseases are characterized by
the possibility of corneal damage that may lead to a sight-threatening outcome.
The retina is exposed to oxidative stress along life span, which produce damage in retinal structure obstructing its proper function. The retinal pigment epithelium cells layer plays a crucial key role in the retinal oxidative stress process.
A large number of ophthalmic drugs are applied by topical administration, making essential to assess their biocompatibility with the cornea. Ex vivo models of cornea are an excellent tool to this end. In this ex vivo model, freshly excised porcine corneas are used to test corneal biocompatibility. Porcine eyeballs from white pigs (age 6-7 months) are enucleated and the corneas are excised as corneo-scleral buttons.
Retinal diseases such as dry AMD, retinitis pigmentosa and others, are still non-curable or the currently used therapeutic approaches are insufficiently effective. Their pathogenesis, likely multifactorial, involving a complex interaction of metabolic, functional, genetic, and environmental factors, remain poorly understood.
Retinal diseases such as dry AMD, retinitis pigmentosa and many others are still non-curable or currently used therapeutic approaches are insufficiently effective. Furthermore, their pathogenesis remains poorly understood. Major abnormalities are seen in four functionally interrelated tissues, i.e., photoreceptors, retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), Bruch's membrane and choriocapillaries. Stem cell therapy showed favorable outcomes. Retinal stem cells (RSCs) are present during embryonic development; they persist in quiescent forms in the adult mammalian eye in the ciliary marginal zone.
Proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) remains the major complication after retinal detachment surgery.
The experimental model of PVR in albino rabbits is based in the combination of some factors suspected of causing the disease in humans. In brief, intravitreal injection of 0.15ml of platelet-rich plasma (PRP), transconjuctival cryotherapy and vitrectomy are performed in the rabbits. PRP is prepared from fresh citrated rabbit blood.
Subretinal injection has been shown to be the most common and efficient way to deliver advanced therapies (such as cell and gene therapies) for photoreceptors and/or retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) pathologies. Furthermore, subretinal injections of different substances is an adequate method of inducing retinal detachment. In brief, a tunnel through the sclera and the choroid is created until the subretinal space, between the neural retina and the RPE, is reached. Then, substances are gently and slowly microinjected into the subretinal space with a microinjection system .
Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common primary intraocular tumor in adults. Despite advances in diagnosis and treatments, UM mortality rates have not considerably changed over the past decades, with a variable 5-year survival rates ranging from 25% to 66%. Metastasis main organ-targets are the liver (71.4–87%) and the lung (24.4%). Unluckily, when liver metastasis are diagnosed, treatment options are limited and mortality is higher, with an estimate survival of 6 months.
