Perfusion outflow facility in the rabbit eye. Stabilization by EACA

The time-dependent increase in apparent facility of outflow (washout effect) that occurs with prolonged perfusion of the eye has imposed limitations on the study of aqueous humor dynamics. The washout effect in postmortem in situ rabbit eyes, undergoing constant pressure perfusion with a saline perfusate, can be attenuated dramatically by adding to the perfusate the serine protease inhibitor and antifibrinolytic agent epsilon-aminocaproic acid (EACA) at a concentration of 3.8 X 10(-3) molar. Washout curves from 13 pairs of rabbit eyes, plotted as outflow facility versus time, were fitted by linear regression, and their washout slopes calculated. The washout slope of all of the 13 eyes perfused with normal saline + EACA was lower in magnitude (less washout) than the paired control eye in the same animal, perfused with a control perfusate of normal saline + leucine. Wilcoxon signed rank test yielded P less than 0.001. This suggests that a significant component of the washout effect may be mediated by fibrinolytic activity, or by some EACA sensitive component of the aqueous drainage pathway, and that addition of EACA to a saline perfusate may be useful for blunting the washout effect in prolonged perfusion studies.