Corneal neovascularization can occur following infection, various types of injury or even surgery of the cornea. Although many angiognenic factors have been found in recent years and the rabbit corneal test for a wide variety of angiogenic factors has been utilized ever since the earliest studies on this complex phenomenon, little is understood as to what factor or factors actually induce corneal neovascularization. Among the suggested angiogenic factors, prostaglandins (PGs) are known to be produced by different ocular tissues including the cornea during inflammation or other pathological conditions. To elucidate the role of PGs on corneal neovascularization, it is crucial to determine whether PGs (mostly PGE1 & PGE2) are actually synthesized during and especially prior to the invasion of blood vessels to the normally avascular cornea. It is particularly important to find out whether PGs and other arachidonic acid (AA) products are synthesized in vascularized corneas following a physical injury when no other exogenous chemical agents are present. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to establish a thermal burn model suitable to study the relationship of (1) AA product synthesis as determined by radioimmunoassay and high pressure liquid chromatography and (2) polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMN) migration as determined histologically to corneal neovascularization. The effects of lipoxygenase products of AA, especially leukotriene B4 (LTB4), have not been studied on corneal neovascularization. On the other hand, many investigators have shown that the presence of PMNs or other leukocytes may be a necessary prerequisite to angiogenesis. PMNs are known to be able to synthesize PGs and LTs. Consequently, two additional aims of this study are: (1) to determine whether LTs are angiogenic in the cornea following intrastromal injection or implantation, and (2) to determine a preliminary temporal relationship among PMN infiltration, AA product synthesis and neovascularization. If the results from this pilot investigation are positive, a more in depth study will be carried out to determine the precise role of AA products on corneal neovascularization caused by physical injury or other angiogenic factors possibly shedding light on the treatment and the prevention of corneal neovascularization.