Preparation And Preliminary Study Of Eye Enucleation Snare

Objective: To explore the feasibility, efficacy and safety of performing eye enucleation with snare.Methods: An eye enucleation snare was designed and manufactured. Twenty rabbits were randomly divided into experiment and control groups, each group consisting of 10 rabbits. Eye enucleation was performed on the right eye in both experimental and control group using eye enucleation snare and eye scissors respectively. All the operations were performed by the same investigator. The intraoperative bleeding, intraorbital tissue injure, optic nerve visualization and postoperative complication were observed, the intraoperative blood loss and the optic nerve stump lengths were recorded, and histopathologic changes were examined by light microscopy.Results: The eye enucleation snare was made of type 1Cr18Ni9Ti stainless steel with its size set by human orbital measurement parameters, wireroop (diameter 1mm) was chosen for snare material, and the front end of straight tube (outer diameter 5mm) was treated to parallel cutting edges. Both groups of 20 rabbits underwent eye enucleation successfully without any severe postoperative complication. The intraoperative blood loss of experimental group were 5.86±0.37ml and that of control group were 6.65±0.32ml, there was a significant difference (t=5.126, P<0.01) in intraoperative blood loss between experimental and control group. No intraorbital tissue injure was observed in experimental group, but 3 lacrimal gland injuries were discovered in control group. Better optic nerve exposure and visualization was observed in experimental group than that in control group. The optic nerve stump lengths of experimental group were 8.48±1.26mm, and that of control group were 6.12±1.59mm. The optic nerve lengths of experimental group were remarkably longer compared with that of control group (t=3.669, P<0.01). Histopathology of optic nerve stumps showed 4 mild crush artifacts in experimental group, while no abnormality in control group.Conclusions: The current study demonstrated that the use of eye enucleation snare in eye enucleation is simple, safe, effective, and potential for clinical use.