USE OF ADRENOCORTICOTROPIC HORMONE AND CORTISONE IN OCULAR DISEASE

Abstract

OPHTHALMOLOGISTS have used nonspecific foreign protein therapy for years in the treatment of a variety of ocular lesions. As previously reported,¹ it was our belief that the benefit derived from this form of therapy could be attributed in part to the release of endogenous adrenocorticotropic hormone with an acceleration of mechanisms normally evoked in stress states. It has been shown by Sayers and Sayers² that both heat and killed typhoid organisms, among many factors, produce changes in the adrenal cortex of the experimental animal which are characteristic of the general response to stress. The same type of changes can be produced by the injection of adrenocorticotropic hormone. Talbot³ and Venning⁴ and their associates and others have shown a significant increase in the urinary excretion of 11-oxysteroids and 17-ketosteroids following a variety of stress states, such as trauma and surgical procedures. Forsham,⁵ Mason,⁶ and Sprague and associates⁷ and others have