THE MORGAGNIAN AND BRUNESCENS CATARACT MORPHOLOGY STUDIES WITH SEM AND TEM

The Morgagnian cataract lenses - pre-fixed with GA for SEM & TEM and post-fixed with tannic-acid-arginine-OsO4 for SEM and OsO4/K4Fe(CN)6 for TEM after staining with Ur-acetate/Pb-citrate - showed areas in the cortex with radial in stead of concentric running lensfibres, degeneration of lensfibres with vacuoles and defected ''ball & socket'' connections. The presence of oval/spherical bodies of 0.5-20 mum was acknowledged, the largest of them having a golfball appearance and originating from the cytoplasm of the degenerating lensfibres; the smallest of them with an approximate size of 0.2-0.5 mum seemed to be formed by budding off from the microvilli of the furrowed lensepithelium.

The Brunescens cataract lenses showed at low magnification no difference between lensfibres from the cortical area and the nucleus. The desintegration process of the lensfibres was observable as degradation of the ball & socket system and the existance of holes in the lensfibre body and emerging of spherical bodies from the cytoplasm. The globular structures seemed to be covered with a thin coating and were partly filled with a low density membranous-like material. In TEM-sections of the cataractous lensmaterial vacuoles were visible consisting of a large number of smaller globules with a contents of low contrast low density membranous-like material, comparable with the globular structures seen in SEM.