Abstract
Purpose :
Although autologous serum eye drops are considered safe and efficient for the treatment of various ocular surface disorders, the clinical efficacies and serum components of these in different patients have seldom been analyzed. The purpose of this study was to compare the treatment response and serum components of autologous serum eye drops in patients with different disease entities to predict patients' treatment response.
Methods :
From June 2015 to Feb 2016, the study enrolled 45 patients who continuously used autologous serum eye drops for more than 6 months. The disease entities of the patients were divided into Primary Sjogren’s Syndrome (SS), Secondary Sjogren’s Syndrome and ocular surface disorders other than SS. Ocular surface disease index (OSDI) was used to evaluate the subjective treatment effects. Ocular staining grading was used to evaluate the objective treatment effects. Standard ELISA and Multiplex ELISA arrays were used to evaluate the concentrations of important growth factors, extracellular matrix and proinflammatory cytokines in serum eye drops. The correlations between treatment effects and serum components were analyzed.
Results :
The study enrolled 14 patients with Primary SS, 11 patients with Secondary SS, and 20 patients with non-SS ocular surface disorders. There was no significant difference in OSDI and ocular staining grading among the three groups, although Secondary SS seemed to have higher OSDI and more severe ocular staining (p>0.05). Patients with Secondary SS had significantly higher expressions of IGF-1 and TGF-b1 compared to Primary SS patients (p<0.05). There was no significant difference in hyaluronic acid, b-FGF and EGF expressions among the three disease entities (p>0.05). For proinflammatory cytokines, there was significantly higher expressions of IL-2, IL-8 and TNF-α in Secondary SS (p<0.05). There was no significant difference in IL-1b, IL-6 and IL-17 among the three groups. Multiple linear regression demonstrated positive correlations between OSDI and the expression levels of TGF-b1, TNF-α (p<0.05) and negative correlation between OSDI and hyaluronic acid (p<0.05).
Conclusions :
Our results suggest that autologous serum eye drops may not be equally effective in different ocular surface disorders. The expression levels of several growth factors and proinflammatory cytokines may be used to predict treatment outcomes.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.