Despite numerous technological and medical developments achieved in recent years, a significant amount of occupational health problems still exist in modern dentistry. The risk of eye injury is mostly attributed to the use of high-speed hand pieces and ultrasonic devices. A dental clinic may be the source of eye-related infection and injury because of mechanical, chemical, microbiological and e...

OBJECTIVE Detrimental effects of the preserved prostaglandin analogs (PGAs) have been thoroughly documented in the published literature. The current work studied two preservative-free (PF) prostaglandin eye drops: PF tafluprost and PF latanoprost. The aim of the study was to compare these two PF formulations in vitro for viability of the human corneal epithelial (HCE-T) cells and in vivo for oc...

Symptom Assessment DED patients may experience a variety of symptoms: discomfort, blurred vision, dryness, irritation, and, in some cases, just awareness of their eyes. These ocular surface symptoms are nonspecifi c and often not self-reported. To identify suspect DED and establish the need for further assessment, a good fi rst step is to ask patients how their eyes feel and what kind of sympto...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Hyperosmolarity is a central mechanism causing ocular surface inflammation and eye irritation in typical patients suffering from tear dysfunction. Tear composition in dry eyes, or dysfunctional tear syndrome, may destabilize the tear film and cause ocular surface epithelial disease. Increased activity of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), especially MMP-9, plays a critical role...

PURPOSE Ocular side effects in patients using eye drops may be due to intolerance to the vector used in eye drops. Castor oil is the commonly used lipophilic vector but has been shown to be cytotoxic. Effects on cells of four oils (olive, camelina, Aleurites moluccana, maize) were compared with those of castor oil in human conjunctival cells. METHODS Human conjunctival cells were incubated wi...