Clinical specular microscopy: the Australian experience

It is almost one year since the Corneal Diseases Unit of The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital began preliminary evaluation of the Pocklington Keeler-Konan Wide-Field Specular Microscope. With this instrument, approximately one square millimetre of living human corneal endothelial cells can be observed and photographed. This relatively large area gives a far more valid assessment of endothelial cell morphology and numbers than was possible with narrow field instruments. Reproducible lines enable the relocalization of the same area of endothelium. Observations of endothelial cells have been made in health and disease, including eyes with corneal dystrophy, following cataract surgery with and without intraocular lens implantation, corneal grafting, and after the use of Healon in the anterior chamber.