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Artificial tears may improve contrast sensitivity in dry eye patients
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PHOENIX – Two weeks of artificial tear use resulted in a decrease in the contrast threshold in dry eye subjects, but not in the higher-order aberrations, according to a poster presentation here at Academy 2012.
“A briefly presented stimulus tied to the blink can detect a decrease in contrast sensitivity in dry eye patients that don’t have central corneal epithelial damage. This suggests that the decrease in contrast sensitivity in these patients results from an unstable or inadequately formed tear layer,” the authors said.
According to the poster, a significant difference in contrast threshold (CT) was observed in dry eye subjects across the 2-week time period (P = 0.007). Also, a Tukey simultaneous test showed the CT for week 2 as being significantly different from baseline (P = 0.03).
“The change in CT may be the result of the tear layer becoming more stable after artificial tear use,” the authors said.
The higher-order aberrations for dry eye subjects did not change during the measured time period.
“A change in higher-order aberrations may not have been found because of the large variability in the data,” the authors said.
Data were collected on 31 dry eye subjects that were included in the study and compared alongside data collected on 20 subjects without dry eye.
The study poster was presented by a team of authors led by William H. Ridder, OD, PhD.