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ABSTRACT
As ethanol is known to enter the ocular humours from the blood, the corneal endothelium, which lies in close contact with the aqueous humour, is thus liable to be exposed to ethanol following its consumption. Forensic reports show that many victims of traffic accidents and suicide have various amounts of alcohol in their blood.
Many eyes from coroner's cases are donated for keratoplasty. We were therefore interested to know for how long and at what concentrations alcohol can remain in the cornea and ocular humours of the eyes from intoxicated donors after their storage by the regular eye bank procedures.
Following an intravenous injection of ethanol in rabbits, their eyes were enucleated and stored in the moist chamber at 4°C. At various times, the cornea and the aqueous and vitreous humours were assayed by gas chromatography (head space analysis). Tissues and fluids of eye bank stored eyes of two known cases of alcohol overdose were also assayed.
The rabbit data showed that alcohol concentrations in the stored eyes decreased with time. However, the human data showed that ethanol can remain in the ocular fluids as well as in the cornea in significant amounts at least up to 4 days of moist chamber storage.