Abstract
Purpose :
To discover the prevalence of ocular Graft Versus Host Disease (oGVHD), the symptoms of dry eye and the success of various dry eye treatments in a convenience sample of GVHD patients who were members of a Facebook forum.
Methods :
A systematic review of all comments on a Facebook GVHD forum posted from August 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016 was conducted. The number of commenters and all ocular-related symptoms, treatments and success of those treatments were recorded in a template. Results were compared with current literature.
Results :
584 individual GVHD commenters provided a prevalence of 25.5% oGVHD. Twenty-five (25) specific dry eye symptoms were reported. The most common were: dry eye (47.8%) , oGVHD (22.5%), pain (10.8%). Treatments were reported by 61% (91/149) of oGVHD commenters. The most common (23.1% to 25.3%) were: artificial tears, punctal plugs, scleral contact lenses, Restasis, autologous serum. The most successful were: bandage soft contact lenses (100% of 9 posts), omega-3s (100% of 4 posts), scleral contact lenses (95.45% of 22 posts).
Conclusions :
Social media provided easy access to 584 GVHD patients and allowed an estimate of the prevalence of oGVHD as well as the symptoms and treatments of dry eye in this patient population.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.