Hydroquinone is a reducing agent widely used in photography. The clinical picture and course of the conjunctival and corneal changes in workers employed in the manufacture of hydroquinone have been well described.1-10
The early conjunctival pigmentation has been studied histologically also, and was found to be the result of finely granular and globular brown material distributed within and between cells, mainly in the basal layer of the epithelium and in the episcleral tissue.1,2
To my knowledge, no histopathologic report is available on the corneal alterations that develop later in the disease. It is the purpose of this study to describe these histopathologic changes as observed in three corneal buttons obtained by keratoplasty.
Material and Methods
The corneal tissue from case 1 and case 2 was obtained from the University Eye Hospital in Hamburg, Germany, while that from case 3 was contributed by Drs. B. Anderson, Sr., and A.