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Abstract
For treatment of postmenopausal keratoconjunctivitis sicca hormone therapy is favored
by some clinicians. The likely morphological basis assessing the hormone receptor
status in the human cornea has not been performed. Immunohistochemical staining methods
provide the opportunity to evaluate the hormone receptor content within the histologic
compartments of the cornea. The aim of our study was to assess and localize immunohistochemical
hormone receptor staining in the human cornea.
Formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded specimens of three pre- and three postmenopausal
women were assessed for localization of estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor
(PR) expression with established immunohistochemical hormone receptor staining methods.
No nuclear staining reaction was found in the epi- and endothelial layers of the corneas.
The stroma of the corneas showed no immunohistochemical staining reaction in all cases.
We found cytoplasmatic PR staining of the endothelial layer in two cases.
We found no morphological basis in the human cornea for the use of topical steroid
hormone treatment in postmenopausal keratoconjunctivitis sicca. Hormone receptor expression
in the conjunctiva or in the lacrimal gland may have an impact in some patients showing
relief of symptoms in postmenopausal dry eye syndrome.