Dry eye may have autoimmune mechanism

MAINZ, Germany - Dry-eye disease may have an underlying autoimmune mechanism, according to a recent study. This hypothesis is further supported by the successful treatment of the disease with immunomodulatory drugs such as cyclosporin A, the study authors said.

The complex antibody repertoires in the tears of patients suffering from dry-eye disease were different from those found in the tears of healthy volunteers, the study showed.

Although it is known that tears contain antibodies, very little is known about the antibody repertoires in tears. The aim of this study was to analyze the immunoglobulin-A antibody repertoire against ocular antigens in the tears of patients suffering from dry-eye disease and compare it to those of healthy volunteers.

F.H. Grus, MD, and colleagues found a complex staining pattern was inherent to the tears of both dry-eye patients and healthy controls. However, the number of peaks was significantly increased in the tears of dry-eye patients. A discriminate analysis found a statistically significant difference between the antibody repertoires of the groups.

Two groups were examined: 20 healthy volunteers and 28 patients suffering from dry-eye disease. The patients were grouped according to the results of the basic secretory test. Patients with secretory values of 10 and subjective symptoms were classified as dry-eye patients. All tears were tested against Western blots of ocular antigens. For each Western blot, a densitograph was built by digital image analysis, and subsequently a multivariate discriminate analysis was performed.

This study is published in the November-December issue of Ophthalmologica.