The eyes have it: Collection provides insight about disease

Richard Dubielzig has a collection of eyeballs. They’re not exactly peering out at him from shelves, though.

Dubielzig, a veterinary pathologist at the School of Veterinary Medicine, does his own peering at the Comparative Ocular Pathology Laboratory of Wisconsin. Dubielzig founded the lab, which currently has more than 7,000 slide-mounted eyeball specimens, making it one of the largest such collections in the world.

Through his comparative pathology service, Dubielzig is able to provide accurate and timely diagnosis of even the most obscure eye problems for veterinary ophthalmologists. Best of all, the service is non-invasive.

“Instead of developing an animal model and creating disease to study it, my work uses medical specimens that are available through routine medical procedures such as autopsy or biopsy,” he says. “By examining these specimens, we develop a better understanding of spontaneous disease.”

Eyeballs arrive from all around the world, primarily from veterinary ophthalmologists seeking pathology information. Dubielzig examines the eyes for evidence and reports back to the submitting veterinary ophthalmologist.

The majority of cases involve tumors, severe inflammatory disease, glaucoma, or trauma. Dubielzig says the sheer quantity of eyeballs in all stages of disease coming through the lab enables him to determine the origin of certain types of problems. For example, he was the first to recognize that trauma to a cat’s eye increased the risk of the cat developing a malignant tumor anywhere from one to 10 years following the trauma.

Most eyeballs are from dogs and cats. They are shipped in a formalin solution, in watertight plastic jars. Sometimes only a portion of an eye is sent. Upon arrival, the eyeballs are preserved in a paraffin (wax) solution. Technicians then slice thin sections off the eyeball, mount the section on a slide, and dye the slide for better visibility.

“I’d like to see more congenital eye disorders, but veterinarians usually don’t think to send them in,” Dubielzig says.

In addition to the pathology collection, Dubielzig also oversees an “Eye Museum” of specimens of normal eyes from all species. These specimens are donated by organizations such as Sea World or zoos.