Efficacy of the combination of cyclosporine and sodium hyaluronate eye drops on dry eye syndrome

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the efficacy and adverse effect of cyclosporine combined with sodiumhyaluronate (SH) eye drops on dry eye syndrome (DES).Methods: 148 patients with DES treated in Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital Group Suqian Hospital,Jiangsu Province, China between January 2022 and February 2023 were randomly assigned to control(70 cases) and study groups (78 cases). Control group was treated with SH eye drop (1 drop each onboth eyes 5 - 6 times a day, for 2 months), while study group was treated with both SH (the samedosage and use with control group) and cyclosporine eye drop (1 - 2 drops each for both eyes, 4 - 6times a day, for two months). Tear film stability indices such as schirmer I test (SIT), tear break-up time(BUT) and corneal fluorescein stain (FL) of both groups were analyzed before and after therapy.Results: There was no significant difference in BUT, SIT and FL score between the two groups beforetreatment. Compared with before treatment, BUT and SIT increased significantly (p < 0.05), while FLscore dropped significantly in both groups after treatment (p < 0.05). After treatment, study groupshowed significantly higher BUT and SIT levels, and significantly lower FL score than control group (p <0.05).Conclusion: The combination of cyclosporine eye drops with SH eye drops is effective in treating DES.This combination regimen protects tear film stability, effectively alleviates DES symptoms, improvesocular surface and meibomian gland function, and also increases lacrimal river height, withoutincreasing adverse reactions. Further studies will be required, to provide more evidence for clinicalapplication of this combination regimen.