Autologus serum in treatment of dry eye disorder: An evaluation.

Dry eye syndrome is a common disorder of the tear film in which eye is unable to maintain a healthy layer of tears to coat it. Despite various conventional treatments such as ocular surface lubrication, artificial tears, protective glasses and punctal occlusion many patients continue to have signs and symptoms of dry eye. That’s why autologous serum eye drops have been indicated for the treatment of dry eye. Therefore, to evaluate the effectiveness of the autologous serum eye drops in dry eye disorder, a total of 34 eyes of 20 patients were included in this study, who used autologus serum eye drops along with artificial tears. Out of 20 patients, 16 were males and 4 were females with M: F ratio of 4:1. The mean age of the patients was 51.95 years. Evaluations of patients were done before and after treatment in follow up, by determining the subjective and objective scores which showed that after follow up of 2 months all the subjective and objective scores were reduced in 28 eyes but 6 eyes did not show any improvement at follow up of 2 months as they stopped the drops after one month of use because of discomfort.

Pharmacoepidemiology of drugs utilized in ophthalmic outpatient and inpatient department of a tertiary care hospital.

Periodical auditing of drug utilization is vital for promotion of rational use of drugs. So for pharmacoepidemiological analysis of the drugs, utilized in eye OPD and IPD, a study was conducted prospectively for six months, in the Department of ophthalmology and pharmacology. Data were collected, from the prescription form of patients in OPD and from the bed head tickets of patients in IPD. Various parameters of utilization pattern were evaluated. The maximum number of patients belongs to age group of 46-60 years and lower middle class of socioeconomic status but there was no sex preponderance. Dosage, frequency and duration of therapy were recorded in more than 89% of prescriptions. An average number of drugs per prescription were 2.69 and 3.2; drugs prescribed by their generic names were 26.04% and 35.33%; fixed dose combinations prescribed were 36.98% and 67.29% and polypharmacy found were 23.3% and 11.47% of prescription in OPD and IPD respectively. The commonest dosage forms were eye drops in OPD and injections in IPD. More than 80% of the drugs were prescribed from hospital pharmacy. Average total cost per prescription was 87.40 INR in OPD and 135.80 INR in IPD but it was free of cost from hospital pharmacy.