Impact of thermo-mechanical skin treatment on refraction and keratometry in patients with dry eye disease and the implications for cataract surgery

Marta Blanco-Vázquez, Raquel Gil-Cazorla*, Ankur Barua, Mukesh Taneja, Ludger Hanneken, Sunil Shah

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Purpose: To determine the changes in keratometry measurements and refraction in patients having the thermo-mechanical periorbital skin treatment, Tixel®, to treat dry eye disease (DED).

Methods: A multi-centre, prospective, non-masked study was conducted. DED patients were recruited in 3 international centres and were evaluated in 5 visits separated by an interval of 2 weeks except for the last visit which took place after 18 weeks from visit 1. The same clinical examination was performed at all visits: OSDI questionnaire, tear stability, keratometry, best corrected visual acuity and refraction. Tixel® treatment was applied at the first 3 visits.

Results: 89 participants (24 males/65 females; mean age: 55.0 ± 14.2 years) were included: 20 presented moderate DED symptoms and 69 severe DED symptoms. Significant differences were found for the spherocylindrical refraction (vector analysis) between visit 1 and visits 2 and 3. Following cumulative analysis, 11.86 % and 16.94 % of participants had more than 0.5 dioptre (D) change in mean keratometry and keratometric astigmatism, respectively, at 3 months post-treatment. A total of 5.40 % had a sphere and cylinder change greater than 0.50D and 16.21 % had the axis changed more than 10 degrees (vector analysis). These changes were particularly significant in patients with severe DED symptoms.

Conclusions: Keratometry readings and refraction can change following thermo-mechanical skin treatment for DED, especially in those patients with severe DED symptoms. This should be considered as potential errors in intraocular lens calculations may be induced.
Original languageEnglish
Article number102164
Number of pages7
JournalContact Lens and Anterior Eye
Volume47
Issue number3
Early online date8 Apr 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2024

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of British Contact Lens Association. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Keywords

  • Keratometry
  • Refraction
  • Dry eye disease
  • Thermo-mechanical treatment
  • Tixel

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