Study results indicate testing dry eye patients for binocular vision disorders

Issue: June 2014

ORLANDO, Fla. – Symptoms related to dry eye and binocular vision disorders were found to be similar in a study of 95 subjects, suggesting the need to evaluate patients with dry eye for such disorders.

Erin M. Rueff, OD, of the Ohio State University School of Optometry, and colleagues reported in a poster here at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting results of a study where subjects completed the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) and the Convergence Insufficiency Symptom Survey (CISS). These patients were enrolled in a larger study of dry eye disease. The mean age of subjects was 51.3 ± 13.6 years, according to the poster, and 79% of the subjects were female.

“We recognized that the symptoms of dry eye and binocular vision disorders are very similar,” Rueff told Primary Care Optometry News in an interview. “We wanted to see if we queried that group of subjects if the symptoms would correlate.”

Rueff said that she and her colleagues pulled out three questions from the OSDI that were specific to binocular vision, addressing painful or sore eyes, trouble with reading and trouble with computer work.

The researchers found the subjects’ scores on the OSDI and CISS to be positively correlated, according to the poster.

“The results suggest that clinically we should be testing our dry eye patients for binocular vision disorders as well,” Rueff said. “And a good dry eye study should exclude subjects who have significant symptoms of binocular vision disorder – just doing a cover test at the beginning of the study to exclude those subjects whose symptoms could be due to a binocular vision issue, not a dry eye issue. It’s a big deal with dry eye, because in so many of our dry eye patients we don’t see any ocular surface signs; all we have are symptoms to go off of.” – Nancy Hemphill, ELS

Disclosures: Rueff and colleagues have no financial disclosures.