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Congressional briefing highlights July as Dry Eye Awareness Month
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The Alliance for Eye and Vision Research and the Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society joined with others in the vision community to recognize July as Dry Eye Awareness Month and the two groups also participated in related a congressional briefing.
The Alliance for Eye and Vision Research (AEVR), in a summary provided to Primary Care Optometry News, said the July 10 briefing focused on the Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society Dry Eye Workshop II (TFOS DEWS II) Report and how it has impacted clinical practice and research.
Participants in the briefing explained dry eye’s significant impact on health care policy – affecting 30 million Americans and costing the U.S. health care system $3.8 billion annually, with $55.4 billion in annual cost to society from diminished productivity, according to the AEVR summary. TFOS executive director Amy Gallant Sullivan moderated a panel of four experts who participated in the TFOS DEWS II initiative.
Victor Perez Quinones, MD, explained how iatrogenic dry eye is unintentionally introduced by contact lens wear, topical and systemic drugs, and certain ophthalmic surgeries, and how eye care professionals need to work to reduce its incidence, according to the summary from AEVR.
Deborah S. Jacobs, MD , told participants how ocular pain can result from dry eye, corneal injury, headache and traumatic brain injury and that further research is needed in this area.
Bridgitte Shen Lee, OD, discussed the growing public health problem of dry eye in children and teens resulting from meibomian gland dysfunction that is caused by poor hygiene, cosmetics and digital screen usage. She said data is limited and urged more research into dry eye in the pediatric population.
David A. Sullivan, MS, PhD, spoke about the impact of innovation coupled with National Eye Institute funding. He and his colleagues, with NEI support, were able to test their hypothesis that topical lubricin would be a safe and effective therapy for dry eye disease, which led to them translating their basic research discovery into a clinical treatment.
“Their efforts have led to a recent and successful clinical trial in Europe, as well as to discoveries by multiple researchers that this recombinant human lubricin may be a possible therapy for many other conditions, including dry mouth, osteoarthritis, gout and postsurgical adhesions,” according to the summary. “In effect, innovation and NEI funding can have a very far-reaching impact.”