Pilocarpine is sometimes used immediately before certain types of corneal grafts and cataract surgery.[21][22] It is also used prior to YAG laser iridotomy. In ophthalmology, pilocarpine is also used to reduce symptomatic glare at night from lights when the patient has undergone implantation of phakic intraocular lenses; the use of pilocarpine would reduce the size of the pupils, partially relieving these symptoms.[dubious – discuss] The most common concentration for this use is pilocarpine 1%.[citation needed] Pilocarpine is shown to be just as effective as apraclonidine in preventing intraocular pressure spikes after laser trabeculoplasty.[23]
Use of pilocarpine may result in a range of adverse effects, most of them related to its non-selective action as a muscarinic receptor agonist. Pilocarpine has been known to cause excessive salivation, sweating, bronchial mucus secretion, bronchospasm, bradycardia, vasodilation, and diarrhea. Eye drops can result in brow ache and chronic use in miosis. It can also cause temporary blurred vision or darkness of vision, temporary shortsightedness, hyphema and retinal detachment.
Pilocarpine is a drug that acts as a muscarinic receptor agonist. It acts on a subtype of muscarinic receptor (M3) found on the iris sphincter muscle, causing the muscle to contract - resulting in pupil constriction (miosis). Pilocarpine also acts on the ciliary muscle and causes it to contract. When the ciliary muscle contracts, it opens the trabecular meshwork through increased tension on the scleral spur. This action facilitates the rate that aqueous humor leaves the eye to decrease intraocular pressure. Paradoxically, when pilocarpine induces this ciliary muscle contraction (known as an accommodative spasm) it causes the eye's lens to thicken and move forward within the eye. This movement causes the iris (which is located immediately in front of the lens) to also move forward, narrowing the Anterior chamber angle. Narrowing of the anterior chamber angle increases the risk of increased intraocular pressure.[26]
Plants in the genus Pilocarpus are the only known sources of pilocarpine, and commercial production is derived entirely from the leaves of Pilocarpus microphyllus (Maranham Jaborandi). This genus grows only in South America, and Pilocarpus microphyllus is native to several states in northern Brazil.[27]
Pilocarpine is extracted from the leaves of Pilocarpus microphyllus in a multi-step process : the sample is moistened with dilute sodium hydroxide to transform the alkaloid into its free-base form then extracted using chloroform or a suitable organic solvant. Pilocarpine can then be further purified by re-extracting the resulting solution with aqueous sulfuric acid then readjusting the pH to basic using ammonia and a final extraction by chloroform.[28][29][30]
Pilocarpine is used to induce chronic epilepsy in rodents, commonly rats, as a means to study the disorder's physiology and to examine different treatments.[31][32] Smaller doses may be used to induce salivation in order to collect samples of saliva, for instance, to obtain information about IgA antibodies.
^Gornitsky M, Shenouda G, Sultanem K, Katz H, Hier M, Black M, et al. (July 2004). "Double-blind randomized, placebo-controlled study of pilocarpine to salvage salivary gland function during radiotherapy of patients with head and neck cancer". Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Oral Radiology, and Endodontics. 98 (1): 45–52. doi:10.1016/j.tripleo.2004.04.009. PMID15243470.
^"Glaucoma and ocular hypertension. NICE guideline 81". National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. November 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2019. Ocular hypertension... alternative options include carbonic anhydrase inhibitors such as brinzolamide or dorzolamide, a topical sympathomimetic such as apraclonidine or brimonidine tartrate, or a topical miotic such as pilocarpine, given either as monotherapy or as combination therapy.
^Lusthaus J, Goldberg I (March 2019). "Current management of glaucoma". The Medical Journal of Australia. 210 (4): 180–187. doi:10.5694/mja2.50020. PMID30767238. S2CID73438590. Pilocarpine is no longer routinely used for long term IOP control due to a poor side effect profile
^Hamilton R (2015). Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopoeia 2015 Deluxe Lab-Coat Edition. Jones & Bartlett Learning. p. 415. ISBN9781284057560.
^Rosin A (1991). "[Pilocarpine. A miotic of choice in the treatment of glaucoma has passed 110 years of use]". Oftalmologia (in Romanian). 35 (1): 53–55. PMID1811739.
^Holmstedt B, Wassén SH, Schultes RE (January 1979). "Jaborandi: an interdisciplinary appraisal". Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 1 (1): 3–21. doi:10.1016/0378-8741(79)90014-x. PMID397371.
^World Health Organization (2019). World Health Organization model list of essential medicines: 21st list 2019. Geneva: World Health Organization. hdl:10665/325771. WHO/MVP/EMP/IAU/2019.06. License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
^"Pilocarpine". MedLinePlus. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Archived from the original on 6 March 2010.
^Yang WF, Liao GQ, Hakim SG, Ouyang DQ, Ringash J, Su YX (March 2016). "Is Pilocarpine Effective in Preventing Radiation-Induced Xerostomia? A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis". International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics. 94 (3): 503–511. doi:10.1016/j.ijrobp.2015.11.012. hdl:10722/229069. PMID26867879.
^De Abreu IN, Sawaya AC, Eberlin MN, Mazzafera P (November–December 2005). "Production of Pilocarpine in Callus of Jaborandi (Pilocarpus microphyllus Stapf)". In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology - Plant. 41 (6). Society for In Vitro Biology: 806–811. doi:10.1079/IVP2005711. JSTOR4293939. S2CID26058596.
^Schwab L (2007). "Glaucoma". In Fourth (ed.). Eye Care in Developing Nations. pp. 99–116. doi:10.1201/b15129-14 (inactive 12 November 2024). ISBN978-1-84076-103-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)
^Károly N (2018). Immunohistochemical investigations of the neuronal changes induced by chronic recurrent seizures in a pilocarpine rodent model of temporal lobe epilepsy (Thesis). University of Szeged. doi:10.14232/phd.9734.