Abstract
Purpose: :
To report the prevalence of Ocular Surface Disease (OSD) in patients with glaucoma or ocular hypertension (OHT) living in humid or dry climates in Argentina.
Methods: :
A cross sectional study was performed. Inclusion criteria for the glaucoma group (GG) (n=120) were patients: 50-90 y/o with glaucoma or OHT who signed the informed consent. Patients were excluded if they were using medications known to affect the ocular surface, if they were using contact lenses, history of use of punctum plugs, previous corneal surgery, autoimmune diseases, and inability to understand the study. Normal subjects (n=35) without glaucoma or OHT with the same exclusion criteria were included as a control group (CG). This study was simultaneously undertaken in 3 centers in Buenos Aires city with a humid climate, and in 1 center in Mendoza city with a dry climate. The following tests were performed: tear break-up time (BUT), Schirmer, and lissamine green (LG) conjunctival and corneal staining. BUT (seconds) was defined as normal (≥ 10), mild-moderate (5-9) and severe (< 5). Schirmer (mm) was defined as normal (> 10), mild-moderate (6-10) and severe (0-5). LG was normal with no staining, mild with staining in nasal or temporal conjunctiva, moderate with staining in nasal and temporal conjunctiva and severe with corneal staining. The OSDI questionnaire was used to investigate symptoms. OSDI was normal with scores between 0-5.9; mild to moderate: 6-14.9, and severe 15 or more.
Results: :
In Buenos Aires, glaucoma vs control results were: pathological BUT 76.7% and 54,6% (p=.01), pathological Schirmer test 81.3% and 59% (p=.04), pathological lissamine green 33.7% and 7.4% (p=.03), pathological OSDI 90.6% and 73.5% (p=.01) . In Mendoza glaucoma vs control results were: pathological BUT 79.4% and 92.2% (p=.4), pathological Schirmer test 73.6% and 61.5% (p=1), pathological lissamine green 41.1% and 30.8% (p=.7), pathological OSDI 73.5% and 85.8% (p=.4).
Conclusions: :
in Buenos Aires, with a humid climate, OSD was more prevalent in the GG compared with the CG. In Mendoza city, with a dry climate no statistical differences were found in the prevalence of OSD between glaucomas and controls. Both in Buenos Aires and Mendoza OSD was highly prevalent among studied individuals.
Keywords: clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: prevalence/incidence • cornea: tears/tear film/dry eye • conjunctiva