Relationship Between Ocular Surface Epithelial Damage, Tear Abnormalities, and Blink in Patients With Dry Eye

This study involved 45 eyes of 45 female patients with dry eye (mean age: 57.6 years). In all eyes, tear meniscus radius (mm), spread grade of the tear film lipid layer (SG: 1-5: 1 being the best), fluorescein breakup time (FBUT, seconds), corneal and bulbar conjunctival epithelial damage (CED: 15 points maximum and CONJUNCTIVAL EPITHELIAL DAMAGE (CjED): 6 points maximum, respectively), and Schirmer I test (ST1, mm) were evaluated. Blink rate (BR, blinks per minute), palpebral aperture height (mm), upper-eyelid opening-phase amplitude/upper-eyelid closing-phase amplitude (mm), upper-eyelid opening-phase duration/upper-eyelid closing-phase duration (ms), and upper-eyelid opening-phase maximum velocity/upper-eyelid closing-phase maximum velocity (mm/s) were measured using a custom-made high-speed blink analyzer. Finally, the factors that determine CED and CjED were investigated by multiple regression analysis, in which the parameters were chosen using the stepwise procedure.
Results:
CED and CjED were found to be described as 2.687 + (1.816 × SG) − (0.937 × FBUT) (R2 = 0.656, P

Source: Cornea - February 5, 2019 Category: Opthalmology Tags: Clinical Science Source Type: research