Experimental Retinitis Proliferans in the Rabbit

Introduction  In 1931, Chuta Oguchi¹ produced experimental retinitis proliferans in the eyes of rabbits by intravitreal injection of autogenous blood. Ashton² recently succeeded in producing vascular proliferation into the vitreous body of kittens by raising them in a chamber containing highly oxygenated air. In this study, we induced fibrous and vascular tissue proliferation into the vitreous of rabbits by injecting autogenous blood or saccharated iron oxide.

Materials and Methods  One-tenth of a milliliter of blood was withdrawn from the ear artery of 18 rabbits and injected into the vitreous of the same animal. The right eyes were used for the experiment whereas left eyes were injected with saline or sucrose solution for control. After 2 weeks to 1 year clinical observation, the animals were killed and the eyes were enucleated, fixed in formalin solution, and embedded in paraffin. The sections were stained with Prussian blue^3,4 and counter-stained