Article
The effect of eye drops containing hyaluronic acid on tear film thickness in healthy subjects
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Published: | September 25, 2014 |
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Aim: Dry eye syndrome is a common ocular disease, especially in the elderly. Despite many treatment approaches, instillation of topical lubricants remains the mainstay of therapy. Still, most of the topical lubricants available are not very well characterized and data about efficacy is sparse.
The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of topically administered eye drops containing hyaluronic acid on tear film thickness (TFT) in healthy subjects.
Method: The study was carried out in a randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled design. 16 healthy subjects (8 male/ 8 female) aged between 20 and 36 years were included. One eye received a single dose of hyaluronic acid containing eye drops while the fellow eye received physiologic saline solution as placebo control. The study eye was chosen randomly. TFT was measured with a custom built Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) system before and every 10 minutes until 1 hour after topical administration.
Results: TFT at baseline was 4.8 ± 0.5 µm in the study eye and 5.0 ± 0.4 µm in the control eye. Administration of hyaluronic acid containing eye drops significantly increased TFT (p = 0.008 versus placebo). The maximum increase was observed 10 minutes after instillation (13.9 ± 11.9%). Post hoc analysis revealed that the increase in TFT remained significant until 30 minutes after administration compared to placebo.
Conclusion: The data of the present study indicate that hyaluronic acid containing eye drops increase TFT for as long as 30 minutes in healthy subjects.
References
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