Effects of Tear Film Lipid Layer Thickness and Blinking Pattern on Tear Film Instability After Corneal Refractive Surgery

Purpose: To investigate associations between changes in tear film instability and the lipid layer thickness (LLT) and blink pattern after corneal refractive surgery (CRS).
Methods: Forty patients were enrolled in this study. The LLT and blink pattern were evaluated 1 week before and 30 days after CRS using a novel interferometer and an ocular surface disease index (OSDI) questionnaire, and other tear film stability markers were also evaluated.
Results: Mean OSDI scores increased from 5.52 to 8.54 (P = 0.016), corneal fluorescence staining scores increased from 0.05 to 0.25 (P = 0.034), first noninvasive tear breakup time (NIBUT-F) decreased from 9.66 to 7.33 seconds (P = 0.014), and average noninvasive tear breakup time (NIBUT-Ave) decreased from 12.32 to 10.26 seconds (P = 0.047) 1 month after CRS. Meanwhile, mean total blink frequency in 20 seconds decreased significantly from 12.62 to 6.31 (P

Source: Cornea - June 13, 2017 Category: Opthalmology Tags: Clinical Science Source Type: research