C55675: Dry eye, cataract and refractive surgery

Dry eye disease (DED) is one of the most prevalent eye conditions with 10-30% of the worldwide population diagnosed with DED.¹ The Dry Eye Workshop² defined dry eye as ‘a multifactorial disease of the tears and ocular surface that results in symptoms of discomfort, visual disturbance, and tear film instability with potential damage to the ocular surface. It is accompanied by increased osmolarity of the tear film and inflammation of the ocular surface’. DEWS sub-committees have recently been working towards DEWS II, an updated report, which is due for publication in 2017.

In recent years, clinicians and researchers have tried to better understand the underlying causes of dry eye. Increased tear osmolarity, tear film irregularity, ocular surface injury and inflammation are frequently discussed factors in DED.² Dry eye can be classified into evaporative dry eye and aqueous deficient dry eye. Briefly, evaporative dry eye is typically caused by meibomian gland dysfunction and aqueous deficient dry eye is caused by a reduction in lacrimal tear secretion.