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Tear meniscus size significantly smaller in aqueous tear deficiency dry eye patients
Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2009;50(6):2722-2726.
Aqueous tear deficiency may have a correlation with the size of the tear meniscus, a study found.
The study compared the upper and lower menisci of 48 prescreened patients with aqueous tear deficiency dry eye with 47 healthy subjects. Real-time optical coherence tomography was used to measure the height, radius and cross-sectional area of upper and lower tear menisci after blinking in all patients.
The study authors found that tear meniscus radius, height and cross-sectional area were significantly smaller in dry eye subjects than those without dry eye (P < .01). For both patient groups, upper and lower tear meniscus variables were "strongly correlated with each other," they said.
"[Lower tear meniscus radius] and [lower tear meniscus height] may have potential in the diagnosis of [aqueous tear deficiency]," they said.
For healthy subjects, lower tear meniscus variables were higher than the upper menisci (P < .01), study authors said. There were no significant differences in lower or upper menisci in aqueous tear deficiency patients.