Preliminary study on the effect of medicinal mushroom extract and timolol maleate on dexamethasone induced ocular hypertension in feline's eye model

Abstract

Mushrooms are like mannas and their water heal eye diseases. To determine if aqueous mushroom extract has an effect on ocular hypertension, 8 cats with baseline intra ocular pressure (IOP) of 14.94 ± 0.153mmHg were used in the first phase of this study. The second phase consisted of 2 groups, the experimental and the control groups. The control consisted of 2 cats (4 eyes) while the experimental consisted of 6 cats (12 eyes). Ocular hypertension was induced in the experimental group with 0.1% dexamethasone treatment (2 drops q.i.d x 1/12) and IOP measurement was done weekly using the Perkins hand held Tonometer. The third phase consisted of oculo hypertensive cat eyes (25.275 ± 0.363mmHg), which were further divided into control-1 and experimental group. The control-1 group (4 eyes) was left untreated, while the experimental group was divided into 2 groups, the mushroom treated (4 eyes) and timolol treated (4 eyes) for 15 days. Mushroom extract decreasel IOP below baseline level showing a significant (p < 0.001) IOP reduction of 5.24% better than the control group, while timolol was only 0.85% better.