OBJECTIVE To screen for potential efficacy and assess feasibility and safety of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) as a treatment for Sjögren's syndrome (SS). METHODS A 24-week randomized, double-blinded, pilot trial of oral DHEA (200 mg/day) versus placebo was conducted. The primary comparison was to a hypothesized 20% placebo response rate. If 14 consecutive subjects on DHEA did not respond, a P...

PURPOSE To evaluate the clinical efficacy of newly developed guidelines for the diagnosis and management of dry eye. METHODS This retrospective, multi-center, non-randomized, observational study included a total of 1,612 patients with dry eye disease who initially visited the clinics from March 2010 to August 2010. Korean guidelines for the diagnosis and management of dry eye were newly devel...

OBJECTIVE To study electrical stimulation of the lacrimal gland and afferent nerves for enhanced tear secretion, as a potential treatment for dry eye disease. We investigate the response pathways and electrical parameters to safely maximize tear secretion. APPROACH We evaluated the tear response to electrical stimulation of the lacrimal gland and afferent nerves in isofluorane-anesthetized ra...

PURPOSE The aim of the present study was the in vitro and in vivo evaluation of a novel aqueous formulation based on polymeric micelles for the topical delivery of cyclosporine A for dry eye treatment. METHODS In vitro experiments were carried out on primary rabbit corneal cells, which were characterized by immunocytochemistry using fluorescein-labeled lectin I/isolectin B4 for the endothelia...

PURPOSE To investigate corneal sensitivity to selective mechanical, chemical, heat, and cold stimulation in patients with fibromyalgia (FM). METHODS Twenty patients with FM (18 women, 2 men; 51.9 +/- 2.3 years old) and 18 control subjects (16 women, 2 men; 51.7 +/- 2.4 years) participated voluntarily in the study. Subjective symptoms of ocular dryness were explored and a Schirmer I test was p...

Introduction “Blink” is defined as closing and opening of the eyes in a small duration of time. In this study, we aimed to introduce a fast, robust, vision-based approach for blink detection. Materials and Methods This approach consists of two steps. In the first step, the subject’s face is localized every second and with the first blink, the system detects the eye’s location and creates an ope...