Abstract
Purpose :
Dry eye disease (DED) is a common ocular condition known to impact everyday activities. Examining the relationship between subject and disease characteristics like age, disease duration, ocular symptoms etc., without the confounding effects of therapies, are critical for better understanding the disease process.
Methods :
Data from 1154 subjects who came for study screening prior to initiation of any therapeutic intervention were included for this analysis. The mean age (±SD) was 57.4±15.5 years; 70% of the subjects were females and 30% were males. Subject symptoms were captured using the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) questionnaire which comprises of 12 questions and overall OSDI score, ranging from 0 to 100, was calculated. Relationship between subject symptom based on OSDI overall score and subject age was assessed by correlation of the continuous variables. In addition, subjects were divided into 4 groups based on overall OSDI score; Normal:0 to 12 (N=123), Mild:13 to 22 (N=200), Moderate:23 to 32 (N=201), or Severe: 33 to 100 (N=630). ANOVA was used to compare outcomes between the groups. For each subject, data from only the right eye was included for analysis.
Results :
For all subjects, the overall OSDI score showed significant, mild to moderate negative correlation with age (R = -0.20, p<0.0001), indicating that the OSDI scores were showing improvement with increasing age. Consistently, subjects in mild, moderate and severe OSDI group were younger when compared to those in the normal OSDI group. Mean age in normal OSDI group was 63.3±14.8 years compared to mild group (mean 60.8±14.3 years, p=0.30); Mean age in moderate OSDI group was 57.3±15.8 years (p=0.0018 vs normal group) and in the severe group was 55.2±15.7 years (p<0.0001 vs normal group). More severe groups, based on OSDI scores, also showed longer DED duration when compared to normal group. Mean DED duration was 7.9 years in normal, 9.5 years in mild, 10.9 years in moderate and 11.3 years in severe (p=0.01 for moderate vs normal and p=0.0006 for severe vs normal comparisons).
Conclusions :
Subjects with dry eye show reduced symptoms with increased aging and increased duration of the disease. This could be attributed to reduced sensitivity that occurs as a consequence of increased aging and long-standing disease.
This is a 2021 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.