EyeWorld is the official news magazine of the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.
Issue link: https://digital.eyeworld.org/i/78716
March 2012 Dry eye February 2011 EW SECONDARY FEATURE 95 The LipiView, which is attached to a LipiFlow treatment system for meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD, see "Non-pharmaceutical therapies for dry eye" on page 96 for more information), is able to differ- entiate between patients who have MGD and evaporative dry eye versus patients who have aqueous tear defi- ciency but healthy lipid layers, Dr. Smallman said. "It counts the number of blinks and measures the eyelid excursion for each blink, and you can very clearly diagnose partial, incomplete, or non-blinkers," he said. "This is the first time I have seen any device that has been able to do this, and it's been very surprising to me how many of my dry eye patients are par- tial or incomplete blinkers on top of the fact that they may have aqueous tear deficiency or MGD. If their lids are not closing all the way when they blink, they get worse symp- toms." In the pipeline Currently, OPIA Technologies (Paris) is developing a device called the EyePrim that takes impressions of the conjunctiva to help diagnose ocular surface disorders. The technique was recom- mended by the Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society in the 2007 DEWS report, the company said. Originally, inventor Christophe Baudouin, M.D., professor and chair of ophthalmology, Quinze- Vingts Hospital, Paris, was testing the idea of lifting cells from the con- junctival impressions to diagnose ocular surface disorders. "In many cases, we would not get enough cells, or the cells would be destroyed and it was impossible to make a proper diagnosis," explained Pierre Roy, OPIA's CEO, an engineer who worked on the EyePrim's more advanced collection platform. "The next big step is to work on biomarker identification coupled with this system." Mr. Roy said the device is about to begin clinical trials in Europe and the U.S. "Several point-of-care tests are under development and will be re- leased in 2012," he said. EW Editors' note: Dr. Donnenfeld has financial interests with Abbott Medical Optics (Santa Ana, Calif.). Dr. O'Brien is an ad-hoc, non-salaried consultant for Alcon (Fort Worth, Texas), Allergan (Irvine, Calif.), and Bausch + Lomb (Rochester, N.Y.). Mr. Roy is CEO of OPIA Technologies. Dr. Smallman has no financial interests related to this article. Contact information Donnenfeld: 516-446-3525, eddoph@aol.com O'Brien: 561-515-1544, tobrien@med.miami.edu Roy: +33(0)153462682, pierre.roy@opiatech.com Smallman: 613-546-1858, smallman@kingstoneyeinstitute.com Your ASCRS membership now lets you take the ASCRS Symposium home. With the new ASCRS MediaCenter all the highlights of ASCRS 2011 are now right on your computer. Films, papers and posters exactly as they were presented in an easy-to-use and fully-searchable format. See what you missed or re-visit what you liked most. Search by topic, presenter or key-word. It's the best of ASCRS without leaving home. Log in at www.ascrs.org and click on ASCRS MediaCenter in the left-hand column for complete access. Make your ASCRS membership work harder! Begin learning today!