Abstract
Purpose :
Cyclosporine and artificial tears are increasingly being combined to treat a plethora of dry eye cases, allowing a 15-minute interval between products. Therefore, we developed a new formulation of twice daily 0.05% cyclosporine/0.3% sodium hyaluronate combination eye drops for patient's convenience and investigated whether the new combination eye drops are more effective than 0.05% cyclosporine and 0.3% sodium hyaluronate.
Methods :
Dry eye was induced in C57BL/6 mice through exposure to a controlled environment chamber. To achieve maximum ocular surface dryness, the conditions in controlled environment chamber were supplemented with topical application of 1% atropine twice daily for the first 48 hours. Additionally, the mice also received subcutaneous injections of scopolamine to exacerbate dry eye three times a day for the entire duration of the experiment. Topical formulations containing 0.05% cyclosporine/0.3% sodium hyaluronate combination eye drops, 0.05% cyclosporine, and 0.3% sodium hyaluronate were applied for 21 days following the induction of dry eye. Corneal fluorescein staining (CFS) was performed to detect damage to the cornea at days 0, 7, 14 and 21.
Results :
A significant decrease in CFS was observed following topical treatment with 0.05% cyclosporine/0.3% sodium hyaluronate combination eye drops, 0.05% cyclosporine, and 0.3% sodium hyaluronate compared to vehicle treatment at days 7, 14 and 21. Additionally, 0.05% cyclosporine/0.3% sodium hyaluronate combination eye drops showed a statistically significant greater reduction in CFS compared to 0.05% cyclosporine (P < 0.05) at day 7 and 0.05% cyclosporine (P < 0.01) and 0.3% sodium hyaluronate (P < 0.05) at day 21.
Conclusions :
Our study shows that 0.05% cyclosporine/0.3% sodium hyaluronate combination eye drops are significantly more efficacious than 0.05% cyclosporine and 0.3% sodium hyaluronate in a dry eye animal model. If their additive effect is confirmed by human clinical trial planned for next year, 0.05% cyclosporine/0.3% sodium hyaluronate combination eye drops can be very helpful to dry eye patients who use 0.05% cyclosporine in combination with sodium hyaluronate.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.