Abstract
Purpose :
The purpose of this study is to compare the clinical outcome of pediatric patients 2 years of age or less with nasolacrimal duct (NLD) obstruction who underwent probing under sedation with a Bowman 0-00 probe (Group 1) as opposed to a Bowman 0-00 and a Bowman 1-2 probe (Group 2) all by the same surgeon.
Methods :
A retrospective chart review was conducted. Group 1 had the procedure between August 2007 and November 2010 and Group 2 had the procedure between December 2010 and July 2015. The primary outcome was the rate of NLD probing failure per group, defined as a positive post-operative dye disappearance test (DDT) and/or persistent tearing or discharge two weeks after probing.
Results :
There were 100 procedures on 81 patients. The mean age of these 81 subjects was 15.72 ± 3.02 months and 58.02% were male. Fifty-one (51.00%) procedures were in group 1 and 49 (49.00%) procedures in group 2. Group 2 had a lower failure rate (18.37%) than group 1 (27.45%), but this was not statistically significant (Chi-square, P < 0.2806).
Conclusions :
These results suggests a clinical benefit to using Bowman 1-2 probes in addition to 0-00 probes during NLD probings, however secondary to our sample size, these results are not statistically significant. Further research should be done with a larger sample size.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.