Posters

Tear osmolarity in Parkinson's disease

Poster Details

First Author: S.Ermis TURKEY

Co Author(s):    A. Yazici   E. Koc   E. Sarı   G. Sahin     

Abstract Details

Purpose:

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurological disease specifically seen in elderly patients characterized with motor and non-motor abnormalities and is more prone to dry eye due to reduced blink rate, seborrhea and meibomian gland dysfunction. Studies also reported reduced tear secretions might be related to autonomic dysregulation on lacrimal gland. In this study we evaluated tear osmolarity in PD patients and compared with control subjects.

Setting:

University of Balikesir, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Ophthalmology and Neurology.

Methods:

Twenty patients who met the United Kingdom Parkinson's Society Brain Bank Clinical Diagnostic criteria with a minimum follow-up of 1 year and 20 age and gender matched controls admitted for refractive abnormalities with no other ocular or systemic pathology were enrolled. Patients with any ocular surface disorder, previous ocular surgery, previous dry eye diagnosis, any topical ophthalmic medication or contact lens use, any systemic medication with a possibility to affect tear tests were excluded. The disease age and severity, assessed with Hoehn and Yahr staging, in PD patients was noted. Examinations involved only the right eyes. Osmolarity test was performed using TearLab without anesthesia while the patient is looking straight ahead and the tip of the cartridge was touched to the tear meniscus and the reading was recorded.

Results:

The mean tear osmolarity in PD and controls were 309.32±11.27 mOsm/L and 312.52±10.87 mOsm/L respectively (p>0.05). The mean disease age and Hoehn-Yahr staging score was 4.87±2.92 years and 1.65±0.97 respectively. None of them was correlated to tear osmolarity measurements (Spearmans correlation test, p>0.05).

Conclusions:

Tear osmolarity was not significantly different in PD when compared to control subjects in our study. The lack of significance in tear osmolarity might be explained with the lower mean disease age and Hoehn-Yahr scores of our PD patients. FINANCIAL INTEREST: NONE