Effect of intracameral bevacizumab injection on corneal endothelium in rabbits

To investigate the effect of an intracameral injection of bevacizumab on corneal endothelial cells in rabbits.

Twenty eyes of 10 New Zealand white rabbits were divided into 2 groups. Five group 1 eyes were injected with 1.25 mg (0.05 mL) bevacizumab (subgroup 1A), and the fellow eyes were injected with 0.05 mL balanced salt solution as a control (subgroup 1B). Five group 2 eyes were injected with 2.5 mg (0.1 mL) bevacizumab (subgroup 2A), and the fellow eyes were injected with 0.1 mL balanced salt solution (subgroup 2B). Specular microscopy, corneal pachymetry, and slit-lamp examination were used to evaluate corneal endothelial cell loss and other complications before injection and at 2 hours, 1 week, and 4 weeks after injection. For morphological studies, corneal buttons were excised at 4 weeks and stained with alizarin red and trypan blue. Scanning electron microscopy was used to examine 1 cornea from each of the 4 subgroups.

Within each subgroup, there were no changes in specular microscopy and corneal pachymetry findings over the 4 weeks' duration of the study. In addition, comparisons between subgroups showed that they all returned similar findings for these assessments. Histologically, although all subgroups showed the presence of several giant cells in the endothelium, the hexagonal shape of the corneal endothelium was preserved and no abnormal endothelial cells were observed.

An intracameral injection of bevacizumab (up to 2.5 mg/0.1 mL) did not affect endothelial cell viability or morphology in the rabbit cornea.