Johns Hopkins Health Alerts | Vision | Dry Eye Research Update

• Autologous serum eye drops – promising therapy for dry eye

Autologous serum eye drops, which are derived from a person’s own blood, are gaining ground as a potential treatment for severe dry eye disease that doesn’t respond to conventional treatment. Japanese researchers divided a group of 20 people with severe dry eye disease into two subsets. One group of dry eye patients used only preservative-free artificial tears and the second group of dry eye patients used only autologous serum eye drops for two weeks of treatment. At the end of the treatment period, those who had used the autologous eye drops showed significant improvement of dry eye on several clinical measures of the health of the eye’s surface and reported greater improvement on subjective measures of comfort.

Autologous serum eye drops, contain essential tear components, such as vitamin A and several growth factors. They have been found to be beneficial in treating several eye surface diseases, in addition to dry eye. As for their use in treating dry eye, the researchers say that the next step is to evaluate a larger group of patients over a longer treatment period. This research was reported in the American Journal of Ophthalmology, Volume 139, page. 242.

• The connection between dry eye and diabetes

People with diabetes, especially those with poor glycemic control, are more likely than non-diabetic patients to have dry eye, according to an article in the American Journal of Ophthalmology, Volume 139, page 498. Researchers followed the medical records of 159,624 people who belonged to an Israeli HMO for one year. All of the participants were older than age 50, and 22,382 had diabetes. The researchers tracked the use of artificial tears among the patients with diabetes and those who did not have the disorder. At the end of the year, 20.6% of the patients with diabetes and 13.8% of those without diabetes had used artificial tears.

Moreover, the researchers found a clear trend of greater use of artificial tears as glycemic control (measured by levels of HbA1c) declined. The researchers note that dry eye in people with diabetes may be due in part to damage to the microvasculature of the lacrimal gland (which secretes tears) in the eye. Sensory neuropathy (a nerve disorder) in the cornea also may play a role, as may side effects of medications used to control diabetes.

Johns Hopkins Health Alerts | Vision | Dry Eye Research Update