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Turning results into action: InflammaDry vs. Tear Osmolarity
How’s it going for you with the InflammaDry? We have used it routinely in our dry eye clinic since shortly before the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery meeting.
Essentially, anyone who would have a Tear Osmolarity (TearLab) test performed is also getting an InflammaDry (Rapid Pathogen Screening) test. We are trying to determine several very important things — namely, who should be tested, and what do the results mean? Here’s what we have come up with so far.
The InflammaDry gives us complimentary, but not duplicative, information when mated with Tear Osmolarity. We are still parsing the data, but it appears we are receiving enough actionable information from both positive and negative results that we do not feel it is time to start paring down our protocol. For the time being, we will continue to do both tests whenever our protocol calls for Tear Osmolarity.
How to turn the results into action is a bit trickier. A positive result for the presence of MMP-9 seems to mean different things in different settings. For example, a patient with dry eye syndrome symptoms, low tear osmolarity, a borderline tear breakup time and a positive InflammaDry test now pushes us to treat meibomian gland dysfunction as the primary culprit, whereas a negative result pushes us more toward an ocular surface source. For example, InflammaDry Rx protocol v1.0 is giving us some better scientific justification for the prescription of Azasite (azithromycin ophthalmic solution 1%, Akorn).
In all likelihood, the “how we use the results” part of our evaluation will drive the “who do we do the test on” part of our protocol.
By the way — we are now getting Medicare reimbursement in the approximately $15 range using the QW modifier. Look for a full column on our soup-to-nuts InflammaDry experience soon!