AIM: To provide the morphological evidence for the compound carbomer building high intraocular pressure model successfully.

METHODS: Totally 50 SD rats were divided into experimental group 40 rats, blank group 10 rats by random number method. The rats in experimental group were randomly divided into 3 groups after the model was successful. Experimental model of high intraocular pressure was sacrificed at 1, 2 and 3wk to observe its pathological structure change and ultrastructure change.

RESULTS: The high intraocular pressure of experimental model in 1, 2 and 3wk all showed the optic nerve and retinal damage. It was to see the optic nerve axon disappear, disorder arrangement of myelin sheath, periodic dissolve or demyelinating degeneration, glial cell proliferation. It showed the cells disordered arrangement of retina, the outer nuclear layer became thick, the inner and outer plexiform layer become thick, the kernel layer became thick, air bubbles, the numbers of ganglion cells reduced, ganglion cells and nerve fiber layer edema, microglia proliferation, vascular membrane capillaries expansion, inflammatory cells appearing. It was to see the retinal ganglion cells layer with microglia proliferation under the electron microscope, ganglion cells structure fuzzy, organelles structures disappear, cell apoptosis, mitochondrial swelling, cytoplasm vacuoles degeneration, membrane plate of outer segment fracture or dissolved. And the damage degree was proportional to the forming time of high intraocular pressure.

CONCLUSION: The morphology change of high intraocular pressure model about the retin and optic nerve proves that it is successful building the model through anterior chamber injection of compound carbomer solution.