Abstract
Purpose :
To determine if there are significant differences in the concentrations of tear proteins in Sjögren syndrome keratoconjunctivitis sicca (SS KCS) compared to healthy controls.
Methods :
Tear samples were collected with unmarked Schirmer strips from 15 SS KCS patients and 21 healthy controls. Tear protein was eluted and the concentration measured. Inflammatory mediators were assayed with a Raybiotech L-507 glass slide array and normalized by strip wetting length. All patients underwent an ocular surface exam to evaluate tear-break-up time (TBUT), corneal fluorescein staining, and conjunctival staining. Symptom assessment questionnaire in dry eye (SANDE) scores were collected for all patients.
Results :
57 of the 507 tear proteins analyzed were significantly upregulated in SS patients compared to controls (Table 1). Spearman correlations showed that all 57 upregulated tear proteins were significantly inversely correlated with TBUT and positively correlated with corneal fluorescein staining, conjunctival staining and SANDE scores.
Conclusions :
These findings indicate that hundreds of factors can be assayed in tear proteins collected from a Schirmer strip. The results suggest tear protein concentrations are altered in SS KCS compared to controls. The upregulated tear proteins correlated with clinical measures of dry eye symptoms and disease severity. Tear protein concentrations could serve as important biomarkers for studying pathogenesis and in clinical diagnosis and management of SS KCS.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.