Relation Between Upper and Lower Lids' Meibomian Gland Morphology, Tear Film, and Dry Eye

Abstract

MG scores between lids were significantly different but correlated. MG loss was significantly correlated to tear film characteristics including lipid layer thickness and stability. MG thickness and bent angle of the UL were related to NIBUT. The combination of both lids' MG loss showed best predictive ability of dry eye.

Detection of meibomian glands and classification of meibography images

“…The gland detection algorithm are then applied to the identified region. Although this process of drawing out gland region manually may appear similar to what has already been done in previous studies, [5][6][7]9 the important difference is that here the region inside the identified area is subjected to gland detection by the algorithm, whereas in previous studies the area of interest are drawn by the user with the intention of locating the glands.…”

“…In addition to gland length and width, meibomian glands can also be characterized by other morphological features such as shape, contour, and tortuosity. [5][6][7]9 Such features are important when grading images that are intermediate between the healthy and unhealthy ones. A limitation of the current study is that these features were not assessed.…”

“…This makes it difficult for the SVM to classify. However, this is expected because studies have already shown that the meibomian gland structure of intermediate cases must be described by additional morphological features such as tortuosity, [5][6][7]9 whereas in the current computational method, only the length and width of the gland are considered. To treat the intermediate cases, additional morphological features can be computed based on the gland lines already obtained, and be used to expand the dimension of the feature for the SVM.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] In particular, in the study of meibomian gland dysfunction, which is a major cause of dry-eye, 1 gland dysfunction can be diagnosed by directly observing the morphology of the meibomian glands using meibography. Recently, 2-4 a noncontact, patient-friendly infrared meibography method was developed that is fast and greatly reduced discomfort to the patient.…”

“…The loss of meibomian glands in the upper and lower eyelids have been studied by Arita et al, 2 Pult et al, 5 and Srinivasan et al 9 Pult and Reide-Pult have also assessed the subjective and objective grading of meibography images, 8 and Pult and co-workers have also demonstrated that precise calculation of the area of meibomian gland loss using a computer software can lead to greatly improved repeatability in the application of grading scales. [5][6][7] In addition, other meibomian gland features such as the width and tortuosity of the glands can be accurately computed and analyzed. Similar progress have also been reported by Srinivasan et al 9 These recent works demonstrated the advantages of a computerized approach to analyzing meibomian glands in meibography images.…”