Pre-Senile Cataract Pilot Study using the DLS Device

新的动态光散射（DLS）临床设备最近根据NASA-NEI机构间协议开发，并已被发现在早期白内障形成的研究中使用是安全的，可重复的和敏感的。它可以在体内非侵入性地检测白内障患者的最早分子变化。 在这项初步研究中，我们将使用这种新设备在分子水平上研究老年前期白内障患者白内障形成的最早变化。这些白内障在55岁以下的患者中发展（因此称为“老年前期”），并且这些白内障在第一只眼睛中迅速发展，需要在一两年内进行手术。另一只眼睛通常会在第一只眼睛之后出现类似的快速发展的白内障，因此可以从一开始就使用该设备进行研究。这项研究有望在分子水平上帮助阐明这种类型的人类白内障形成的最早阶段发生了什么，并帮助我们跟踪最初变化后发生的一连串事件。这些信息将有助于发现人类白内障的原因，并可能导致开发诸如抗白内障药物的“对策”，其可以在医学上/非手术上预防、延迟或逆转白内障。初步数据显示，即使在临床上未受累的对侧眼中，也可以检测到透镜蛋白的非常早期的变化。因此，我们将在同侧白内障眼手术后继续随访这些患者。 这种类型的研究在过去是不可能的，因为还没有开发出临床装置来在不将透镜取出眼外的情况下，在原位使用透镜安全、可再现且非侵入性地在体内研究透镜中的分子变化。

The new Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) Clinical device has recently been developed under the NASA-NEI Inter-Agency Agreement, and has been found to be safe, reproducible and sensitive to use in studies of early cataract formation. It can detect the earliest molecular changes in cataracts in patients in vivo, non-invasively. In this pilot study, we will be using this new device to study the earliest changes in cataract formation, in the molecular level, in patients with Pre-Senile cataract. These cataracts develop in patients below the age of 55 years of age (hence"Pre-Senile"), and these cataracts develop rapidly in the first eye, requiring surgery within a year or two. The other eye usually develops a similar rapidly developing cataract after the first eye, and therefore can be studied from the start with this device. This study will hopefully help elucidate, in the molecular level, what happens in the earliest stages of cataract formation in this type of human cataract, and help us follow the cascade of events that occur after the initial changes. This information will be useful in finding the cause of human cataracts and may lead to development of "counter- measures" such as anti-cataract medications, that may prevent, delay or reverse cataracts medically/ non-surgically. Preliminary data shows that very early changes in lens proteins can be detected even in the clinically uninvolved contralateral eye. We are therefore continuing to follow these patients after the ipsilateral, cataractous eye had been operated on. This type of study has not been possible in the past because no clinical device has been developed to study molecular changes in the lens safely, reproducibly and non-invasively in vivo, with the lens in-situ, without taking the lens outside of the eye.