Abstract
Purpose :
The aim of this study was to examine the effect of age and gender on the osmolarity of the tear film and on other dry eye tests age groups, and of different gender. Since it has been suggested that osmolarity might be affected by the severity of dry eye, the patients were also asked to complete a dry eye questionnaire.
Methods :
In this study, 55 patients were divided into five age groups, 20-29 yrs, 30-39 yrs, 40-49 yrs, 50-59 yrs, and > 60 yrs. 27 were men and 28 were women. The subjects were between 20 and 75 years old, with an average age of 44.7 ± 16.1 years. After completion of the symptoms questionnaire (TERTC-DEQ, Narayanan et al 2005), the osmolarity in both eyes was measured (TearLab™, San Diego). Phenol Red Thread Test (PRT-test) was used for tear quantity, fluorescein tear break up time for stability (TBUT) and for corneal and conjunctival staining.
Results :
There was no statistically significant correlation (p > 0.05) between age, gender and osmolarity of either males (r = 0.2007), females (r = 0.0300), or in overall group (r = 0.0877). Correlations between osmolarity and PRT, corneal staining and conjunctival staining were not statistically significant. There was a significant negative correlation (p< 0.001) between osmolarity and TBUT, and a positive correlation between osmolarity and TERTC-DEQ for women (p = 0.01) and for the whole group (p < 0.05), but not for men (p > 0.05).
Conclusions :
Neither gender nor age affected the osmolarity, but the osmolarity of the eye increased with increasing score in TERTC-DEQ symptom questionnaire and with shorter tear braek up time, even though a larger sample group is needed to verify this in both men and women.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.