Serum Eye Drops: Use, Outcomes, Storage And Transportation

THIS DATA, PERTAINING TO STORAGE AND TRANSPORATION OF SERUM EYE DROPS IS A WORLD FIRST.

Patients with chronic and severe ocular surface disease benefit from intervention with serum eye drops. Although serum eye drops have been used for a long time, there is limited information available on patient-reported outcomes and the storage of such specialist drops.

To evaluate patient reported outcomes and understand and gain data on how patients store and transport these drops.

SIngleton Hospital, Swansea, Wales, UK

At our district general hospital, our clinic database was used to identify those patients for whom serum eye drops were previously requested from National Health Service Blood and Transplant Services. Patients were then contacted to identify those actively using them. For those included in the project patient reported outcomes were evaluated using the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) 12-item questionnaire. 11 questions pertaining storage were also asked. The latter has never been reported in published literature.

n=10 patients were included in the analysis. OSDI scores revealed severe disease in n=8 patients. 9 participants were female and the mean age was 59 years old. Rheumatoid arthritis was present in n=3 patients and in terms of ocular history n=4 patients were diagnosed with neurotrophic corneas. Other diagnoses included limbal stem cell deficiency (n=1), aniridia (n=1) and peripheral ulcerative keratitis (n=1). The mean time prior to commencing serum drops was 51 months. Eight patients were using autologous drops and 2 patients were using allgenic drops. The mean duration of use of the serum drops was 2.4 years in our cohort. Whilst on serum eye drops treatment escalation of management was needed in n=2 patients. 

Results continued: In terms of previously never reported data, with respect to storage none of the cohort were aware of the exact storage temperature requirements and did not check their compliances adherence. The biggest and most significant issues identified in all patients were transportation related; most patients have stopped travelling within the UK or abroad for vacations owing to issues with storage of the serum eye drops both en-route and at their final destination.

Serum eye drops provide symptomatic relief to a small cohort of patients. In a world first, we report novel data pertaining to the storage and transportation of such drops.