Abstract
Purpose:
To determine if orally ingested caffeine improves dry eye signs and symptoms after LASIK surgery.
Methods:
A clinical randomized experimental trial was performed including healthy patients with ages between 18-40 years, diagnosed with dry eye stages 1-3 (DEWS international classification) after a LASIK surgery between May and July 2014. The variables studied were: dry eye stage, tear film break up time test(TBUT) , Schirmer test and ocular surface disease index test (OSDI).<br /> All patients had 2 evaluations, the first 1 month after LASIK surgery and the second 1 month after daily consumption of 1 cup of coffee (150cc/200mg caffeine). In both evaluations TBUT, Schirmer test and OSDI were registered before and 30 minutes after ingesting a 200mg caffeine tablet. Student t was analized for all the variables.
Results:
Results: We evaluated 34 eyes of 17 patients, 13 women and 4 men, in wich 41.1% of the patients improved one stage from their basal dry eye stage, while 58.9% remained unchanged after one month of daily consumption of caffeine . In the first evaluation the averege of basal TBUT was 5.55 ± 2.7 seconds, Schirmer’s test 18.76 ± 9.5 mm and OSDI 37.1 points . After 30 min of 200mg of caffeine ingest, the TBUT improved to 6.61± 2.6 seconds and Schirmer’s test 18.64 ± 10.2 mm (p= >0.05). In the second evaluation TBUT showed a basal average of 6.1 ± 1.9 seconds, Schirmer’s test 18.14± 8.1 mm and OSDI 45.6 points, after 30 min TBUT was 6.49 ± 1.7 seconds and Schirmer’s test 23.85 ± 6.5 mm (p= >0.05) .
Conclusions:
Caffeine intake showed an improvement in some of the dry eye variables studied, specially in OSDI test but without a statistical significance for the current number of patients