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The Effect of Sodium Hyaluronate Eyedrops on Tear Meniscus Height Determined by Fluorescein Photography

¹ Dept of Ophthalmology, Keio Univ Sch of Med, Shinjuku-ku, Japan

Commercial Relationships: T. Watanabe, None; M. Kawashima, None; M. Kawai, None; M. Yamada, None; Y. Mashima, None.

Grant Identification: none

Abstract

Purpose: Adequate volume of tears is essential to prevent desiccation of the exposed ocular surface. Such viscous eyedrops as sodium hyaluronate are likely to be beneficial for this purpose. We measured the effect of sodium hyaluronate eyedrops on tear meniscus height (TMH) by using fluorescein photography.
Methods: Thirteen normal subjects were enrolled in the study. All subjects gave informed consent for participation. Tested compounds were artificial tears with 0.1% or 0.3% sodium hyaluronate. Artificial tears was used as controls. Fluorescein sodium (0.1%) was added to all tested artificial tears. After completion of the baseline examinations, 30 µL of eyedrops was instilled into the inferior conjunctival sac of each subject. Fluorescein photographs were taken up to 10 minutes with a fundus camera that was equipped with a blue filter as excitation and a band-interference filter as emission. TMH was measured using digitized image of tear meniscus.
Results: Immediately after the instillation, the TMH was elevated in all cases. It returned to its baseline value within 1 minute when artificial tears without sodium hyaluronate was instilled. TMHs of 0.1% and 0.3% sodium hyaluronate were significantly higher than that of controls up to 3 minutes, and 5 minutes, respectively.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that the duration of increased tear volume with the usage of artificial tears is transient, and can be prolonged by adding sodium hyaluronate to artificial tears.

Keywords: cornea: tears/tear film/dry eye • pharmacology • imaging/image analysis: clinical

© 2003, The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Inc., all rights reserved. For permission to reproduce any part of this abstract, contact the ARVO Office at arvo{at}arvo.org.