The status of dry eye care in surgical practices

D ry eye is very common among patients presenting for cataract or laser vision correction surgery. If the dry eye is not treated preoperatively, it can reduce the quality of preoperative data and can have a negative impact on surgical outcomes. Just prior to ASCRS, we surveyed cataract and refractive surgeons about the incidence of dry eye in their surgical patients, their awareness of current guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of dry eye, and how they typically screen patients for dry eye, in order to understand the current state of dry eye care in surgical practices. The results were quite illuminating. For example, although research shows that rates of dry eye are very high in cataract-age populations, most respondents (65.7%) said that fewer than 20% of their cataract patients have dry eye that requires treatment other than artificial tears. Most respondents (76.7%) also estimated that fewer than 20% of their laser vision correction patients required treatment other than tears for dry eye. These results suggest to me that dry eye is significantly underdiagnosed in surgical patients and may not be treated as aggressively as the literature recommends.