Abstract
Purpose :
Blue light (BL) exposure is considered a risk factor for the development of uveal melanoma (UM), and individuals with fair skin and light irises have the greatest risk. Moreover, commercially available BL filtering intraocular lenses (IOLs; filter 50% of the blue light spectrum) have been shown to protect against the development and progression of UM in multiple in vitro and in vivo studies. The purpose of this study is to test whether filtering lesser amounts of BL will maintain the protective effect against the development of UM in order to customize each IOL based on individualized risk as proposed by personalized medicine.
Methods :
Two UM cells lines (92.1 and UW-1) were used in this experiment. The experimental setup included a light source of 10,000 lux, an infrared cut-off filter and three different commercially available BL filters of different intensities (5%, 16% and 20%). Three different experiments were performed for each cell line using one filter at a time. Each experiment included a control group fully exposed to the light and a condition group covered with one of the three filters. The cells were exposed for 3 hours daily over a total period of 4 days. Cell proliferation using a cytotoxic assay (CCK-8) was determined after each experiment at the end of the 4-day period.
Results :
For the 92.1 cell-line, filtering 20% of BL decreased the proliferation rate significantly compared to the controls (P = <0.01). However, filtering 5% or 16% of BL was not sufficient to show this same effect. Conversely, for the UW-1 cell-line, filtering 16% of BL decreased the proliferation rate significantly compared with the control (P= <0.01).
Conclusions :
The protective effect against BL-induced proliferation of UM cell lines was achieved using the in vitro model described herein. Current commercially available IOLs filter 50% of BL. Based on these results, the development of different BL filtering IOLs according to individual patient risk of developing UM (personalized medicine), while conferring the same protective effect, is recommended.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.