
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 19, 1991                   TAG: 9102190446
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                LENGTH: Medium

NEW DRUG TREATMENT SHOWS PROMISE FOR SOME EYE INJURIES

Fifteen years of research and testing has led to a potential new treatment for a type of eye injury called hyphema that can lead to blindness in some cases, according to researchers.

In 1976, Dr. Earl Crouch Jr. pioneered the treatment of hyphema - bleeding in the chamber of the eye between the iris and cornea - using the oral administration of aminocaproic acid.

About 20,000 people in the nation each year get a hyphema, said Crouch, chairman of ophthalmology at Eastern Virginia Medical School.

Hyphemas are caused when the eye is struck by an object. The injury can lead to partial or total blindness in some patients if not treated properly, Crouch said.

Prior to 1976, the only treatment for hyphema was bed rest with the injured eye covered.

Crouch said the problem with the treatment he developed was that 1 in 5 patients had severe reactions to the drug. Those side effects included nausea, low blood pressure, and vomiting, which could cause renewed bleeding by dislodging the blood clot that forms as the injury heals.

Crouch said he was dissatisfied with the oral treatment and began working on a method to apply the drug directly to the injured eye. If the drug were placed directly on the injury, rather than being absorbed into the blood stream, the side effects could be avoided, Crouch theorized.

Crouch and Dr. Patricia Williams, professor of pharmacology at the medical school, began their clinical trials of the new treatment in 1984. Prior to that they had perfected the drug on laboratory animals.

"We had to prove that the drug decreased the incidence of rebleeding, without being toxic to the delicate tissue surrounding the eye," Williams said of the topical application.

Crouch and Williams began testing patients nine months ago to compare the two forms of the drug but they were unsure of the results until this month, after getting the results from nine patients, Crouch said.

The next step is to expand testing to include another 40 patients in Norfolk and possibly some patients at the University of Illinois.

Long-range goals include increasing the duration of action of the drug, which currently lasts for six hours, and developing a medicated shield to place over the eye, the doctors said. "I think this is definitely a major advance," Crouch said.

by CNB