Original articleImpaired functional visual acuity of dry eye patients☆
Section snippets
Participants and inclusion criteria
For functional measurement of vision and ocular surface regularity, we recruited a consecutive series of dry eye patients, including non-Sjögren’s syndrome-type dry eye (non-SS, N = 10, 2 males and 8 females, average age 51.2 ± 18.3 years), Sjögren’s syndrome-type dry eye (SS, N = 12, all females, average age 54.8 ± 10.4 years), and normal controls (N = 8, 1 male and 7 females, average age 53.8 ± 6.84 years).
Dry eye patients fulfilled the diagnostic criteria of deteriorated tear function and
Visual acuity and corneal surface regularity after sustained eye opening
Ordinary best-corrected visual acuity of non-SS dry eye patients, SS patients, and the normal controls during free blinking was 1.18, 1.15, and 1.27, respectively (Table 1). Ordinary visual acuity examinations revealed no differences among the three groups (P = .21). However, in the dry eye patient groups, functional visual acuity after sustained eye opening without blinking for 10–20 seconds decreased significantly to 0.366 (P = .0007) in the non-SS group and to 0.228 (P < .00001) in the SS
Discussion
In this study we measured functional visual acuity when the subjects eyes had been open for 10–20 seconds. We were surprised to find that functional visual acuity in the dry eye groups decreased significantly with increased SRI, but not in any of the normal controls. Ordinary best-corrected visual acuity in all subject groups was within normal limits without statistical significance accompanied with ordinary SRI. Ordinary SRI in dry eye patients was higher than the normal group without
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Supported by grants from the Medical School Faculty and Alumni Grants of Keio University Medical School, Tokyo and the Hightech Research Center at Tokyo Dental College, Chiba, Japan.