Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology

[odydnas]

Thanks again Indrep.

I am esp. interested in 3. Methods to evaluate the debilitating effects of dry eye and how it relates to disability.

Reading all that stuff with DE must be difficult, so please take your time. Also, I have a science and laboratory research background if you need another person to contribute to reading these papers and posting about them...just send me the papers, and I'll do my best to get some reading done.

Thanks!!

[kimby2007]

Excited

I am very excited to hear about all the topics. Encouraging to know that there are promising developments for DE in the future. Thanks again.

[sazy123]

This is interesting!


Is there any info on ocular rosacea related dry eye and MGD- i feel this is an area which is big and is ignored when researching dry eye.

Dr toyos has cottoned on to it and dr L, but others haven't.

[Gretchen]

How Did It Go?

Hi Indrep -

How was ARVO? Any good nuggets to report back?

Thanks,
Gretchen

[indrep]

Gretchen,
It is interesting to review the presentations. There seems to be three segments of dry eye research: The diagnosis/monitoring, the treatments, how the patient feels.

Diagnosis/monitoring is dominated by osmolarity testing. One device was recently approved. It has some shortcomings but would be better than what is currently available to track improvement in a given treatment plan. Problem in clinic setting is its expensive to purchase and to use. ther is no reimbursemnt from insurance so it would be an out of pocket expense. One I think most people would pay to see if the treatment plan is benefitting them. One month of Restasis copay would pay for the test.

Treatments
Everyone is choosing one issue of dry eye to treat. Some meibomian glands, some lacrimal, some inflammation, etc. I would prefer that the money was spend on sectretions from the glands and less on inflammation. The inflammation would deminish if the ocualr surface fluids were in balance.

Because the FDA has said it will not approve another dry eye drug until the company can prove the patient feels better and is doing better several people are trying to correlate symptons with signs through questionaires. The problem is there are many and the eye care proffession has yet to say definitively which is best.

Overall I was happy that the disease is getting the attention it is. I do believe that with 10-15 years we will see some real breakthroughs in treatments.

[Gretchen]

Thank You

Indrep -

Thank you for the detailed response. The FDA "approvability" issue is such a sticky wicket with this disease. It seems to jam up drug approvals as well as the willingness of pharma to invest in this area.

Thanks,
Gretchen

[sanna]

"Everyone is choosing one issue of dry eye to treat. Some meibomian glands, some lacrimal, some inflammation, etc. I would prefer that the money was spend on sectretions from the glands and less on inflammation. The inflammation would deminish if the ocualr surface fluids were in balance."

I thought the veins was the cause of MGD and that once you have the veins you coud have MGD aswell?

When you remove the veins somehow the MGD would goaway aswell, but thats not so ?