Giving the BCLA its DEWS

The British Contact Lens Association biennial conference has a well-earned reputation on the conference circuit for its relevance to both clinician and academic. It was not surprising, therefore, that the event was chosen as an ideal location to announce the findings from two eagerly anticipated areas of research concerning dry eye disease and myopia intervention, and here we consider the first of these.

DEWS2

Since 2007, clinicians have referred to the findings of the International Dry Eye Workshop when assessing, recording and managing dry eye and related ocular surface disease. The multi-authored international collective of clinicians and researchers, under the support of the Tear Film and Ocular Surface Society (TFOS), managed to pin down a specific clinical definition of dry eye disease which has been widely used ever since and has greatly added to clarity and standardisation of assessment and management of this very common ocular problem. Other groups within the workshop looked at matters such as assessment technique and management options, always making recommendation based on the published evidence base.