Corneal endothelial cell shrinkage after critical point drying

Corneal endothelial cell densities of 30 rabbit eyes were determined in vivo by specular microscopy and after critical point drying by scanning electron microscopy. The range of shrinkage in area of the cells after critical point drying was 3.6% to 49.1% with a mean of 29.7%. This respresents a linear shrinkage of 1.8% to 28.7% with a mean of 16.4%. Comparisons of endothelial cell size or density between different critical point dried speciments therefore cannot be made without knowing how much shrinkage occurred in each individual specimen.