Advances in dry eye disease treatment

Abstract

Purpose of review:The prevalence and burden of dry eye disease continues to grow at a rapid pace, creating an increased need for new therapies. In a sector once limited to only a handful of treatments, clinicians now have multiple options available for patients who fail traditional therapies. This review summarizes the various treatment options available to clinicians treating complex dry eye disease patients. Recent findings:As we better-understand the multifactorial mechanisms leading to dry eye disease, treatments increasingly focus on the amelioration of the underlying deficiencies and inflammation, rather than on transient symptomatic relief alone. Most topical medications seek to replace deficient growth factors and/or decrease inflammation on the ocular surface. The majority of new devices and procedures seek to treat meibomian gland dysfunction, with one new device stimulating tear production through utilizing the nasolacrimal reflex pathway.

Effect of Oral Choline Alfoscerate on Patients with Keratoconjunctivitis Sicca

“…KCS symptoms result from a reduction in both the quantity and quality of tear production. Therapy for KCS includes artificial tear application and topical administration of the bioactive drugs diquafosol and cyclosporine A (CsA) [2]. Punctal plugs can be used to increase tear retention [2].…”

“…Therapy for KCS includes artificial tear application and topical administration of the bioactive drugs diquafosol and cyclosporine A (CsA) [2]. Punctal plugs can be used to increase tear retention [2]. Despite improvement of the tear film and ocular surface characteristics, KCS symptoms often do not respond to treatment [3].…”

Trends in Dry Eye Disease Management Worldwide

“… 44 Topical cyclosporine A is a common second line therapy for those that have had little success with the first line more conservative measures. 22 In July 2016, lifitegrast 5% became the second FDA approved topical ocular anti-inflammatory drug for the treatment of DED.…”

“…The available treatments for DED have advanced over the past couple of decades, despite this, traditional methods of warm compresses and artificial tears remain a universal first line therapy. 22 Second line treatments include tea tree oil therapy for Demodex, punctal plugs, moisture chamber devices, ointment overnight, intense pulsed light therapy, topical corticosteroids, antibiotics, non-glucocorticoid immunomodulators (cyclosporine), LFA-1 antagonist drugs (lifitegrast), purinergic P2Y 2 receptor agonists (diquafosol), oral and topical hyaluronic acid (HA) and oral tetracycline antibiotics. 23–25 ( Table 1 )…”

Control System Applied to the Microinjection of Artificial Tears for Severe Dry Eye Treatment

“…Hispanics have an incidence 1.8 times higher than Caucasians. Dry eye disease currently has no cure [15]; a generalized palliative remedy worldwide is the manual drop application of artificial tears [16] to keep the ocular surface wet. Indeed, the manual drip method is very simple and effective in most cases, however some drawbacks may occur, as in some patients it is not possible to place drops of artificial tears with the same frequency [17], which dismisses the efficiency of the treatment and becomes a tedious practice.…”