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Study: tear film changes play role in glare, contrast sensitivity

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TAINAN, Taiwan — Tear film changes in patients with dry eye may lead to irregularities on the corneal surfaces, causing glare disability, according to a study.

Patients in the early stages of the disease may have changes too subtle to be detected by corneal topography or contrast sensitivity measures, Fu-Chin Huang, MD, and colleagues here said. They compared 15 eyes with dry eye and punctate epithelial keratopathy, 25 eyes with dry eye but no punctate epithelial keratopathy, and 20 eyes in the control group.

Eyes with dry eye and punctate epithelial keratopathy had significantly worse surface regularity index, surface asymmetry index, potential visual acuity and contrast sensitivity than the control group. After instillation of artificial tears, the dry eye group showed significant improvement in all categories.

Differences in corneal surface regularity and visual function between the dry eye/no punctate epithelial keratopathy group and the control group were not significant, except for increased glare disability at low spatial frequency in the dry eye group.

The study is published in the October issue of Ophthalmology.