To prevent the spread of COVID-19, to ensure the safety of ourselves and others, personal protective equipment — various types of masks — has firmly entered our daily lives.   Purpose to conduct a clinical and sociological study of the severity of the dry eye syndrome in medical personnel and medical students against the background of the use of personal protective equipment and to assess the possibilities of its correction using tear replacement therapy.   Materials and methods. 138 medical staff and 149 students were analyzed. A survey was conducted to identify risk factors for the development of the dry eye syndrome. The total tear production was determined using the Schirmer I test at the beginning and after 8 hours of the working day in medical personnel and students before and after a 6-hour lesson. To study the possibility of correcting the dry eye syndrome, students were offered instillations of the tear substitute Gylan 0.18 % 3 times a day. At this stage of the study, 2 questionnaires were used to assess the severity of DES symptoms: OSDI and DEQ, Schirmer I test.   Results. Most of the study participants noted the constant wearing of masks (86.4 % of doctors and 84.8 % of nurses). At the beginning of the study, 45.1 % of doctors and 51.9 % of nursing staff, 45.6 % of students had indicators of total tear production below the reference values. At the end of working hours, doctors (90.9 %), nurses (88.6 %) and students (69.2 %) showed a decrease in the total tear production of varying severity. The use of a tear substitute made it possible to increase the indicators of total tear production: 10 days after treatment, an increase was observed in 45.7 % of cases (but the values were in the range of 10—14 mm), in 31.4 % of cases they reached 15 mm or more and exceeded the initial values (p < 0.05); reduce the symptoms of dry eye: the number of students with DEQ questionnaire syndrome dry eye at the beginning of the study (62.9 %) decreased by 3.2 times.   Conclusions: the conducted study allows us to speak about the currently available riskfactorfor the development of the dry eye syndrome: personal respiratory protective equipment has a negative impact on the indicators of total tear production. Appointment of tear replacement therapy allowed to improve the functional indicators of tears and quality of life. It is necessary to develop and implement measures aimed at identifying and preventing the development of the dry eye syndrome not only among medical personnel, but also among the population as a whole.

In a review of the literature, maternal preeclampsia has been considered a risk factor for the development and severity of retinopathy of prematurity (RP). Preeclampsia is a complication that occurs in the second half of pregnancy (after 20 weeks), and it is diagnosed when arterial hypertension first appears (BP 140/90 mm Hg), proteinuria (0.3 g/L in daily urine), edema (not always), multiple organ/multisystem dysfunction/insufficiency, which are based on the dysfunction of the vascular endothelium. ROP remains a potentially vision-threatening condition that requires careful monitoring and timely intervention to prevent the progression of adverse visual impairment or blindness. RP initially presents with delayed physiological retinal vascular development, which is followed by pathological vasoproliferation; this condition is highly correlated with extreme prematurity and poor postnatal growth. This article discusses the possible mechanisms of influence of maternal preeclampsia on the development and severity of ROP in premature babies. A special role is attributed to circulating antiangiogenic factors in the preeclamptic maternal environment, which can influence the development of fetal retinal vessels and predispose premature infants to ROP. Рreeclampsia increases the risk and severity of preterm birth, which are closely related to the risk of ROP. These results are contradictory, as some authors consider preeclampsia as a risk factor for the development of ROP, while others have not yet identified any connection between these processes. However, several authors consider preeclampsia as a protective factor in relation to the development of ROP. Dysregulation of circulating angiogenic factors plays an important role in the pathogenesis of both preeclampsia and ROP. Preeclampsia should therefore be studied further and considered along with other risk factors for ROP.

This literature review presents the antenatal risk factors for the development of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Despite advances in antenatal and neonatal therapeutic interventions, screening, and follow-up, ROP remains a potentially vision-threatening retinopathy that requires careful monitoring and timely intervention to prevent the progression of adverse visual impairment or blindness. ROP is a multifactorial disease. The main risk factors are low gestational age and low birth weight. Recent experimental and clinical data support the hypothesis that multiple antenatal factors are involved in the etiology and progression of ROP. These factors include the age of the mother, maternal diseases, pregnancy-associated maternal pathologies, use of drugs to correct these conditions, and inflammatory process. Their roles are ambiguous and often contradictory. The physiology of the mother and placenta can significantly influence the risk of ROP development in preterm infants. The placenta connects the mothers body and the fetus, and it functions in the exchange of nutrients and oxygen between the mother and the fetus. Therefore, any pathological changes in the mothers body entail changes in the placenta, which this directly affects the fetus. A sudden loss of placental support is detrimental to the development of infants in the immediate postnatal period. Thus, these factors should be taken into account when assessing the risk of ROP development to predict and prevent poor vision in children.

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