| Past Issue | Volume 8, Number 1, 2006 | | Comparison of Tear Film Profile, Conjunctival Impression Cytology, and Conjunctival Biopsy in Patients with Dry Eye |
|---|
Sunandan Sood,1 Raman Shukla,2 Manisha Nada,2 Ashok Kumar Khurana,2 Brijbala Arora3
1Department of Ophthalmology, Government Medical College, Chandigarh, 2Department of Ophthalmology, and 3Department of Pathology, Pandit BD Sharma Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Rohtak, Haryana, India
Aim: To carry out a comparative study of 3 different methods for assessing severity of disease in patients with dry eye: tear film profile, conjunctival impression cytology, and conjunctival biopsy
Patients and Methods: Fifty patients with clinically diagnosed dry eye underwent 6 tests for tear film adequacy, followed by conjunctival impression cytology and histopathological examination of a conjunctival biopsy.
Results: The clinical severity of dry eye categorised by tear film profile tests as mild, moderate, or severe correlated with the grading of conjunctival impression cytology in 98% of cases and conjunctival biopsy in 90% of cases.
Conclusions: The comprehensive tear film profile method used in the present study is a reliable indirect indicator of cytological changes in the conjunctiva in patients with dry eye. Conjunctival impression cytology, a non-invasive technique, seems to be a more suitable option than conjunctival biopsy when direct documentation of cellular changes is required.
Key Words: Biopsy, Conjunctiva, Cytology, Diagnostic techniques and procedures, Dry eye syndromes
Asian J Ophthalmol 2006;8(1):24-27.
| |
|
|
|
