Abstract
PurposeTo assess the long-term treatment outcomes of dry eye in patients with and without underlying primary Sjögren’s syndrome (SS).DesignRetrospective longitudinal cohort.MethodsSS and non-SS dry eye patients with clinic visits for a minimum of 5 consecutive years at a tertiary, dedicated dry eye clinic were included. Electronic health records were reviewed to collect data regarding demographics, objective dry eye parameters, treatments utilized at baseline and final visit, and corneal complications observed during follow-up.ResultsTwo hundred and two patients (101 SS and 101 randomly selected non-SS), with a mean follow-up of 7.1 years were included. At baseline, mean conjunctival lissamine green staining score was 2.9 and mean corneal fluorescein staining score was 2.0. At last visit, notable improvement in staining score for cornea (–1.1, P < .001) and conjunctiva (–1.8, P < .001) was seen equally in both dry eye groups. Most patients (88.1%) had an escalation of treatment by the final visit, with similar rates in both groups (P = .51). Half (48.9%) of the patients had no conjunctival staining, and a third (34.4%) had no corneal staining at their last visit. Twenty (9.9%) patients experienced a vision-threatening corneal complication, including ulcers and melt, with no difference in occurrences between the groups (P = .64).ConclusionsThe majority of patients in this longitudinal, tertiary clinic-based sample demonstrated improvement in their ocular surface staining score by the final visit with escalation in treatment. Treatments used, improvement achieved, and corneal complication rates leading to loss of vision were similar in both SS and non-SS dry eye groups.
Highlights
Dry eye is a common ocular condition that has been associated with impaired daily function, physical and emotional distress, and decreased quality of life [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Electronic health records were reviewed to collect data regarding demographics, objective dry eye parameters, treatments utilized at baseline and final visit, and corneal complications observed during follow-up
There are no disclosures from the other authors
Summary
Dry eye is a common ocular condition that has been associated with impaired daily function, physical and emotional distress, and decreased quality of life [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Epidemiologic studies have estimated that dry eye affects 5% to 50% of the global population and is a leading cause of visits to an eye care provider [7,8,9]. Patients frequently complain of blurred or fluctuating vision, dry eye does not typically cause decreased visual acuity. Many of the health care insurance policies do not provide coverage for dry eye treatments and the average monthly cost for individual patient ranges from $678 to $1267 based on disease severity [7, 10]
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