Winning Force – 2

The CooperVision FORCE Student Awards acknowledges student projects from the universities of the UK and Ireland and offers the students shortlisted a chance to present their findings to panels of experts at a UK and international level. There were two projects shortlisted from the UK and Ireland this year. This article will outline the runner-up.

Runner-up: Rebecca English
Title: The i-Pen. Comparison with conventional tear film assessments and normative data for clinicians
Supervisor: Dr Julie McClelland

As pointed out in the introduction to this presentation, interest in the measurement of the osmolarity of the tear film has increased greatly since the publication of the latest definition of dry eye disease from the TFOS DEWSII report as follows: ‘Dry eye is a multifactorial disease of the ocular surface characterised by a loss of homeostasis of the tear film, and accompanied by ocular symptoms, in which tear film instability and hyperosmolarity, ocular surface inflammation and damage, and neurosensory abnormalities play etiological roles.’ Indeed, both aqueous deficient and evaporative dry eye are known to promote hyperosmolarity, so accurate measurement of this is an important part of the accurate diagnosis of dry eye disease.