The Future of Dry Eye Therapy

While the majority of dry eye cases can be treated just by using over the counter eye drops, for the select severe cases, more drastic treatment is necessary. Thankfully, recent progress in the field of dry eye research has produced several promising alternative treatment procedures that may provide lasting relief to patients suffering from severe dry eye symptoms.

One of the more well-publicized new alternative treatment has been Lipiflow by TearScience. Lipiflow works by applying heat and gentle pressure to the inner eyelids in order to unclog the meibomian glands. This technique can produce significant improvement in cases of evaporative dry eye since insufficient lipid layer on the tear film is often the key to the condition. Best of all, the treatment is FDA approved, meaning health insurance coverage is a likely possibility.

Intense Pulsed Light therapy works in a similar way to Lipiflow. IPL aim to eliminate bloated, inflammatory blood vessels in the lower eyelid and unplug the necessary oil glands. The result can be significant and patients often report dramatic improvement in the severity of their dry eye symptoms.

Along with Lipiflow and IPL, there has been advances made in the field of at home treatments. Mucosta ophthalmic suspension UD2% is a new drug launched by Acucela and Otsuka Pharmaceutical. The drug has a new mechanism of action which increase the level of mucin in the tear covering conjunctiva and cornea. If effective, Mucosta will stabilize the tear film and lessen the amount of corneal-conjunctival damage associated with dry eye.

Retaine® MGD™ Ophthalmic Emulsion by OCuSOFT is a revolutionary new type of eye drop that stay within the eye. It uses Novagali’s Novasorb technology to bind positively charged ions within the artificial tear to the negatively charged ocular surface. This ensures that the product will be spread in an “optimal, uniform and comfortable way across the entire ocular surface”, improving retention time and user comfort.

The treatment options listed above are just some of the new dry eye therapies that are currently out in the market. Many more are likely to be in the pipeline, awaiting results for tests and clinical trials. There seem to be a general trend that in recent dry eye research to focus more on the root of the condition, aka problem with the patient’s tear film. This is great news for people suffering from severe dry eye who need extra help.

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