Incomplete or absent structures in the inferior limbal palisades region in control subjects. (
A,
B) From subject 2, 48 years old; (
C,
D) from subject 3, 44 years old; (
E,
F) from subject 4, 38 years old. (
A) Shallow palisade ridge remnants (
arrows) present only in the basal epithelial cell layer, and not in overlying wing cell layers. (
B) Short, shallow, indistinct stubs (
arrows) replace normal palisade ridges. A horizontal ridge-like structure (
arrowheads) with underlying blood vessel appears to connect ridges. (
C) Short ridges with blood vessels visible (
arrows), connected by horizontal ridge-like structures (
arrowheads). (
D) Short, shallow ridge-like stubs (
arrows) and more prominent FSP (
arrowhead). (
E) Absence of FSPs in the right eye, with the distal end of palisade ridges terminating at the typical “cracked” appearance of the epithelium in the corneal limbus region (
arrowheads).
4,7 Palisade ridges normally terminate substantially farther from the region of cracked epithelium
4,7 ; see, for example,
Figure 2A. (
F) Absence of FSPs in the left eye. All images are 400 × 400 μm.