Efficacy of Topical Diluted Autologous Serum in Patients of Dry Eye in Bundelkhand Region

ABSTRACT

Background: The dry eye is a symptom complex occurring as sequelae to deficiency or abnormalities of the tear filmwhich can lead to the persistent and progressive damage of the ocular surface. Conventional artificial tear therapies are limited in supplying the neurotrophic factors, vitamins, and immunoglobulins necessary for the health of the ocular surface. Serum has been shown to contain essential tears components in comparable concentrations to natural tears.Present study has been done to evaluate the effectiveness of diluted autologous serum eyedrops in relieving patients’ symptoms and improvement in corneal phenotype in patients of dry eye. Methods: The study included 36 eyes of 25 patients with dry eye disorder from Bundelkhand region only, who were prescribed 20% diluted autologous serum eye drops along with artificial tears. Patients were asked to apply this serum 8-10 times per day in affected eye and they were examined on end of 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th week to determine the efficacy of the treatment. Evaluation of efficacy of autologous serum treatment for dry eye, was determined by comparing subjective and objective score calculated by a scoring system suggested by “National Eye Institute Industry workshop on clinical trials”from day 1 to every subsequent visit for follow up. Results: We noticed that after 8 weeks’ treatment of topical diluted autologous serum, 35 cases of dry eyes showed decrease in subjective as well as objective score and only 1 case of eye did not show improvement after 8-week treatment. Conclusion: We concluded that the use of 20% diluted autologous serum tears appears to be a safe and good therapy in cases of dry eye disorder as it was effective in improvement of symptoms and objective signs even in severe dry eye disorder.