Posters

Treatment of Meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) with intense pulse light therapy (IPL) combined with low level light therapy (LLLT)

Poster Details

First Author: K.Stonecipher USA

Co Author(s):                        

Abstract Details

Purpose:

The purpose was to show the effects of IPL/LLLT in patients with severe MGD.

Setting:

The setting was two offices (cataract and refractive patients) with one surgeon participating.

Methods:

The author treated 476 eyes of 238 patients in a prospective study of IPL/LLLT for treatment of MGD. All patients were treatment failures with previous topical and systemic medications. All patients received complete eye exams with the primary focus on the subjective evaluation of the intervention using the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) and the objective evaluation of the intervention using Meibomian Gland Expression (MGE) and Tear Break Up Time (TBUT) prior to treatment and 1-3 months after treatment. The subjects were followed for up to one year.

Results:

Prior to intervention the average OSDI score was 44.4. Post treatment that was reduced to 25.4. Prior to intervention the average MGE was 3.63. Post treatment that was reduced to 2.36. The MGE was defined on a 4-point scale with 4 being the inability to express meibum and 0 being normal. The author will further define this scale with a video presentation. Finally, prior to intervention the average TBUT was 3.78 seconds. Post treatment that TBUT was increased to 7.56 seconds. There were no reported adverse events. All patients noted improvement of the MGD with the treatment.

Conclusions:

The use of IPL/LLLT for the treatment of MGD is beneficial as a primary intervention or secondary intervention in patients who have failed topical and/or systemic therapy.  The author will discuss the use of this technology for MGD in the surgical and standard evaporative or mixed mechanism dry eye disease patient. The author will discuss the use of this technology to improve outcomes in refractive and refractive cataract surgery.

Financial Disclosure:

... receives consulting fees, retainer, or contract payments from a company producing, developing or supplying the product or procedure presented, ... receives consulting fees, retainer, or contract payments from a competing company