Dissecting ocular tissue for intraocular drug studies

This report describes a convenient reproducible ocular dissection technique which has important applications for ocular antimicrobial penetration studies. Different ocular tissues can be sectioned while frozen and then plated directly on culture medium containing the test organism; after the zones of bacterial inhibition are measured at 18 hours following incubation, the tissue specimens are weighed providing more reliable evidence regarding drug concentrations. In such a fashion, a drug can be administered topically, subconjunctivally, or systematically, and assayed from the cornea to the optic nerve at various time intervals. Analysis of antibiotic in the vitreous body, which has important application in the therapy of endophthalmitis, can be routinely performed in the experimental model.