Other results of the Expert Opinion study were also indicative of the insufficient Dry Eye treatment so many have received.
According to the study:
respondents reported wanting to prescribe cyclosporine A 0.05 % (52/79, 66 %), autologous serum eye drops (39/73, 53 %), resolvin E1 (omega 3 fatty acid) eye drops (31/72, 43 %), and 3 % Diquafosol (31/75, 41 %) more often.
Here again we see Restasis, which is effective for about 10% of patients, and serum tears rise to the top of the list.
Almost half were interested in prescribing resolvin E1, presumably due to its anti-inflammatory properties. But even resolvin E1 isn’t likely to address the underlying cause of inflammation.
Just over 30% wanted to prescribe diquafosol. A 2012 double blind study compared diquafosol 3% to sodium hyaluronate 0.1%. The authors of that study reported that
the incidence of adverse events was 26.4% and 18.9% in the diquafosol and sodium hyaluronate groups, respectively, with no significant difference.
31% of the Expert Opinion participants said they wanted to prescribe diquafosol more often.
In the spirit of first do no harm wouldn’t it be better to first know who might suffer adverse events before prescribing diquafosol in order to prevent them from happening in the first place?
References
Expert opinion in the management of aqueous deficient Dry Eye Disease (DED)
A Sy; K. S. O’Brien; M. P. Liu; P. A. Cuddapah; N. R. Acharya; T. M. Lietman; J. Rose-Nussbaumer
BMC Ophthalmology
2015;15(133)
View the full report
A randomised, double-masked comparison study of diquafosol versus sodium hyaluronate ophthalmic solutions in Dry Eye patients
E. Takamura; K. Tsubota; H. Watanabe; Y. Ohashi
The British Journal of Ophthalmology
2012;96(10):1310-1315. doi: 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2011-301448
View the full report
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