Blink And You Won’T Miss It : A Novel App To Manage Dry Eye
Published 2025 - 43rd Congress of the ESCRS
Reference: PO597 | Type: Free paper | DOI: 10.82333/4cz8-2b59
Authors: Alejandro Cerviño Expósito* 1 , Iverson Chiu 2 , Ana Hervás-Ontiveros 3 , William Lee 4
1University of Valencia,Burjassot,Spain, 2ICares Medicus,Zhubei City,Taiwan, Province of China, 3Ophthalmology,La Fe University and Polytechnic Hospital,Valencia,Spain, 4AST VisionCare, Inc,Billerica,United States
Purpose
Dry eye disease (DED) is characterized by loss of tear film homeostasis and a lack of association between signs and symptoms. The purpose of this study is to use a novel non-invasive artificial intelligence based imaging and app based treatment modality to alter subjective symptoms and objective tear metrics in evaporative dry eye patients.
Setting
Tertiary eye care hospital in north india
Methods
It was a prospective interventional study of subjects with evaporative dry eye disease (EDE) defined as subjects with symptoms of dry eye and fluorescein break up time (TBUT) less than 10 seconds. The sample size was 50 subjects. All subjects underwent baseline dry eye evaluation including lipid layer thickness, Non contact TBUT, FBUT, Schirmer's, Meniscus height and variability in ocular surface temperature using the Ocular surface imager. The OSDI questionnaire was administered to all subjects. Our novel smartphone and computer screen app was installed to monitor and remind subjects to blink and follow the 20-20-20 rule. All tests were repeated at 1 and 3 months after using the app.
Results
There was a change (p=0.07) in NKBUT from baseline (7 + 0.87) seconds to one month after the app based intervention(11 +0.78). The lipid layer thickness increased (p=0.09) from (54 + 10)nm to (72 +11)nm after the intervention. There was a significant reduction in OSDI scores (p=0.04) from (24 +4) to (10 +5) after using the app. The meniscus Height and corneal higher order aberrations showed significant improvement (p<0.04). There was a trend towards less fluctuation in ocular surface temperature though this did not achieve statistical significance. There was no significant change in the Schirmers values, Meibo score or Aberrations.
Conclusions
The use of this novel and simple imaging based app may help patients practice better blink hygiene. This may lead to improvement in tear film metrics and subjective symptoms in patients with EDE without any other intervention. Further studies and a larger sample size are required to verify the same