Epithelial Invasion of the Anterior Chamber

Abstract

For more than a century ophthalmologists have been interested in the growth of epithelium within the anterior chamber. Reports of this condition were published as early as 1832, when MacKenzie described a semitransparent cyst growing in the anterior chamber after a perforating injury, but it was not until 1872 that Rothmund presented the first comprehensive clinical study of epithelial cysts in the iris and anterior chamber.^1,2 Although most of his 37 cases followed injury, 2 occurred after cataract extractions, and from his investigations Rothmund concluded these cysts were caused by implantation of epithelium in the anterior chamber at the time of injury or operation. This idea was opposed by von Wecker, who thought the cysts arose spontaneously when the iris surface became infolded or adherent over a crypt, but the experiments of Masse and others and the histopathologic studies of Collins and Cross, Guaita, and Meller soon confirmed Rothmund's