Comparison of the suppressing capecitabine and 5-fluorouracil effects on the pronounce of inflammatory cells score in the induction of episcleral fibrosis after trabeculectomy

• Main Authors: Milivojević Milorad, Vukosavljević Miroslav, Aleksić Petar, Stojković Radovan, Dimitrijević Jovan, Latković Zoran, Avramović Siniša
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Military Health Department, Ministry of Defance, Serbia 2007-01-01
• Series: Vojnosanitetski Pregled
• Subjects: glaucoma; trabeculectomy; fluorouracil; prodrugs; drug therapy; fibrosis; treatment outcome
• Online Access: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0042-8450/2007/0042-84500707449M.pdf

Background/Aim. Trabeculectomy is a filtering antiglaucoma surgery performed to facilitate the formation of a drainage channel for the aqueous humor from the anterior chamber of the eye to the subconjunctival space making a collector, filtering cushion of the eye liquid. The cause of unfavourable outcome of trabeculectomy is episcleral fibrosis which leads to the obstruction of the drainage channel. Inflammatory reaction is an initial, but, also, the key event in the process of fibrosis and directly proportional to it. A successful medicamentous suppression of inflammation could stop fibrosis. Arccordingly, the aim of this study was to comparatively evaluate suppressing effects of capecitabine and 5-fluoroaracil upon inflammation, an initial fibrosis process after trabeculectomy. Methods. This study was performed on an experimental animal model, namely 24 rabbits (48 eyes), which were exposed to artificial cause of the tissue changes analogous to human subclinical inflammation. During the trabeculectomy, a 5% solution of 5- fluoroaracil was applied to the right eye sclera of a rabbit, while 2% solution of kapecitabine was applied to the left eye sclera, thus making possible to evaluate the effects of different drugs to the same animal. Two weeks after the surgery the subconjunctival - episcleral tissue cuts were analyzed. Semiquantitative histologic test was used to compare the cellular elements of inflammatory (fibroblasts, mononuclears, plasmocytes, eosinophiles), as well as fibrosing (colagen, reticulin fibers) process, and, based on the differences in histopathologic score, suppressive efficacy of 5-fluoroaracil and kapecitabine was evaluated and compared between the groups of the treated tissues. The results were shown as mean values ± standard deviation. Results. A statistically significantly lower score was revealed in the initial inflammatory cells - mononuclears and plasmocytes in the group of the tissues treated with kapecitabine, while there was no differences between the groups in the score of fibroblasts and colagen fibers. Conclusion. The suppression of the initial episcleral fibrosis process obtained by kapecitabine was more significant as compared to the suppression obtained by 5-fluoroaracil, thus providing more favorable outcome of the trabeculectomy. .