Cultured human and rat corneal epithelial cells with 51Cr incorporated were used as a model to test the cytolytic action of four common preservatives. Benzalkonium chloride, chlorohexidine and thimerosol were all found to lyse greater than 40% cells when incubated for fifteen minutes at concentrations in clinical use in topical ophthalmic medications. Chlorobutanol is the only preservative tested which has a low level of cytotoxicity (10%) and which, under these conditions, can be considered a safe preservative using cytolytic activity as the means of criteria.
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Neville et al. (1986) studied this question.
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