Anterior Chamber

This eye has a small piece of lens nucleus sitting in the bottom of the anterior chamber after successful phaco cataract extraction. This usually occurs when a piece of the hard nucleus gets stuck in the angle and isn’t seen in surgery because of dense arcus or corneal edema (especially sub-incisionally). This nuclear fragment eventually…

This video demonstrates what cell and flare look like under the slit-lamp microscope. “Cell” is the individual inflammatory cells while “flare” is the foggy appearance given by protein that has leaked from inflamed blood vessels. This finding is commonly seen with uveitis, iritis, and after surgery … and actually seeing it can be challenging for…

This video shows a perfluoron bubble sitting in the bottom of the eye in the anterior chamber. This chemical is used during retinal surgery to help lay down the retina. Here it has somehow gotten into the front portion of the eye. Since perfluorocarbon fluid is heavier than water, the bubble has sunken to the…

This video shows an eye with a hypopyon. This is when pus layers out in the front portion of the AC and can be seen as white in the bottom portion of this movie. Hypopions can be sterile or infectious. This particular case was secondary to bacterial endophthalmitis from an exposed tube-shunt (a tube placed…

This video shows a layer of blood inside the eye called a hyphema. Hyphemas like this one can occur after blunt injury when the delicate iris arteries bleed into the front anterior chamber of the eyeball. Treatment of hyphemas involves steroid drops (to decrease inflammation) and cycloplegics (to dilate the eye for comfort and to…

This video shows an eye with a large hyphema (blood) inside the anterior chamber. The blood has settled into the bottom 35% of the eye, while the upper portion of the AC is dense with free-floating RBCs. In the last half of the movie, I create a paracentesis using a super-blade scalpel. Hyphemas typically occur…

In this video you can see particles stuck to the back surface of the cornea. These are KP (keratic precipitates) which are clusters of inflammatory cells that tend to congregate and stick to the endothelium during times of AC inflammation (uveitis). As you can see in this video, the KP spots are visible on the…

This gonioscopy video shows an interesting finding: the blue line is a haptic from an intraocular lens that has poked through the iris into the anterior chamber. Fortunately, the eye pressure was not affected, and there does not appear to be any inflammatory response (ie. you don’t see any PAS in this video). Gonioscopy is…