Bovine amniotic membrane helps heal dog corneal erosions

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of bovine freeze-dried amniotic membrane (FD-AM) (Amnisite-BA) in the surgical treatment of corneal ulceration in dogs. ANIMALS STUDIED: Eight normal Shih-tzu dogs. PROCEDURES: The corneas of 16 eyes were scored with an 8.0-mm trephine under general anesthetic and 100% ethanol was applied to remove a standardized button of corneal epithelium. The eyes were treated as described below and the corneas were evaluated 48 h later. The dogs were divided into four treatment groups: (i) control, (ii) amniotic membrane transplantation (AMT), (iii) nictitating membrane flap and (iv) contact lens. The proportion of the corneal wound that healed was calculated and all eyes were enucleated. Histological sections of cornea were assessed with the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) assay. RESULTS: The proportion of corneas healed in the different treatment groups was (i) 38.02%, (ii) 89.15%, (iii) 52.31%, and (iv) 60.56%. Epithelial healing was significantly increased in the AMT group (ii) (P = 0.001) while groups (iii) and (iv) were not significantly different from the control group (P = 0.537 and P = 0.198, respectively). The number of PCNA positive cells was (i) 275.00, (ii) 740.50, (iii) 285.75 and (iv) 420.59, these varying compared with the control group with statistical significance of (ii) P = 0.002, (iii) P = 0.999, and (iv) P = 0.467. The greatest healing rate and epithelial cell proliferation was achieved with AMT compared to the other treatment regimes. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study show that FD-AM transplantation is an effective treatment for enhancing canine corneal wound healing and suggest that the approach will provide superior results compared to conventional treatments for the condition.