Effects of Ascorbic Acid on Chemical and Thermal Corneal Burns: A Comprehensive Literature Review
Medical Hypothesis, Discovery & Innovation in Optometry,
Vol. 1 No. 2 (2020),
28 February 2021
Background: Ascorbic acid has been suggested to be effective in chemical burns. It has first been tested in rabbits, then it was implemented in human subjects and proved that it could be used in different treatments such as corneal chemical and thermal burns. Herein, we aimed to review the effects of ascorbic acid in the healing of chemical and thermal corneal burns.
Methods: Authors included an electronic search of MEDLINE, clinicaltrials.gov, and Google Scholar without time limit on English literature. The final outcome after selection based on inclusion and exclusion criteria using keywords “Corneal Burn,” AND “Corneal Ulcer,” AND “Vitamin C,” yielded seventeen articles in English focused on the effect of vitamin C on corneal burn induced ulcer, either chemical or thermal.
Results: The seventeen related eligible studies that fulfilled the inclusion criteria included three retrospective nonrandomized comparative study on human subjects and fourteen in vivo laboratory-based studies on rabbits (12 studies), rat (one study), as well as guinea-pigs (one study). Most of the studies have shown benefits in using vitamin C as a prophylactic treatment that delays or stops corneal ulcer after chemical or thermal corneal burn.
Conclusions: Vitamin C is a very basic inexpensive prescription and can be used to treat corneal ulcers following a variety of corneal burns, regularly. Besides, this review highlights the necessity for conducting randomized controlled trials to investigate on the prophylaxis role of vitamin C and to determine its minimum required dose in the management of corneal ulcers following different kinds of corneal burns.