Transplantation Of Cultivated Autologous Oral Mucosal Epithelial Cells On Amniotic Membrane In Rabbits With Corneal Alkali Burn

Objective: Severe limbal epithelial cell deficiency (LECD), such as occurs in Stevens-Johnson syndrome, ocular cicatricial pemphigoid, and thermal and chemical burns, often leads to the covering of the corneal surface by invading neighboring conjunctival epithelial cells with ingrowth of fibrous tissue, stromal scarring, and neovascularization. This severely compromises the ocular surface and seriously affects visual acuity. Many attempts have been made to establish a surgical treatment of LECD, including corneal epithelial transplantation (keratoepithelioplasty, limbal transplantation, and amniotic membrane (AM) transplantation). The most recently developed treatment involves the use of cultivated corneal epithelial stem cell transplantation. Because LECD is usually bilateral, some doctors use allocultivated corneal epithelial stem cell transplantation using AM as a carrier. However, intensive, prolonged, postoperative immunosuppressant therapy is necessary to prevent inflammation and allograft rejection. This markedly reduces patients' quality of life and severely affects the clinical results. So we study the treatment of rabbit cornea alkali burn by cultured oral mucosal epithelial cells growing on amniotic membrane for allograft transplantation.Methods: After anesthetization, one eye of each 21 New Zealand rabbits (2–2.5 kg) was alkali burned by 1mol/LNaOH for 1 min under sterile conditions. Human AM was obtained at the time of cesarean section, and the amniotic epithelium was removed by EDTA treatment. Oral mucosal biopsy specimens, each measuring 4–6 mm2, were obtained from...