The aqueous humour antioxidative capacity in different types and color of the age-related cataract

BACKGROUND/AIM: Oxidative stress results from increased oxidative processes, decreased antioxidative protection, or both processes simultaneously. Photooxidative stress, as a form of oxidative stress, induced by the energy of solar radiation, today is considered as crucial in the age-related cataractogenesis. Other known and unknown, endogenous and egsogenous factors that contribute to the oxidative stress intensity, can influnce the cataract type and brunescence. Thus the oxidative stress intensity and its form might determine the cataract type and brunescence, and also make the efforts in cataract prevention more complex. Hence, the objective of the present paper was to investigate the current amount of antioxidative capacity in aqueous humour during the cataract genesis of different types and pigmentation of cataract. METHODS: Transversal review of 80 samples of humour aqueous obtained during extracapsular cataract extraction. Aqueouses were analyzed by tiobarbituric acid (TBA) method for the total antioxidant activity estimation, expressed as %iMDA, and by using 0.1 ml of aqueous. RESULTS: The mixed type of cataract showed the statistically significantly lower values of the intensities of antioxidative protection in aqueous humour compared to cortical and nuclear cataracts (p < 0.001, respectively). Between pure nuclear and cortical cataracts we found the small differences of the investigated parameter, but they pointed to the decreased level of antioxidative protection, i.e. the increased intensity of the aqueous humour oxidative stress in the cortical cataract type. A significant correlation betweer the cortical cataract maturation and the %iMDA (p < 0.05) was found. CONCLUSIONS: The role of the oxidative stress, here expressed as the antioxidative capacity of aqueous humour, could not be the same for all the cataract types. The lower level of antioxidative protection of aqueous in brunescent and mixed cataracts may point to the higher intensity of oxidative stress in those cataract types. The correlation betweer the cortical cataract maturity and %iMDA points to the significant decrease of the aqueous antioxidative protection in the cataract progression.