• Emily Pik Yin Choy, Pauline Cho, Iris Frances Forster Benzie, and Camus Kar Man Choy.
• School of Optometry, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China.
• Cornea. 2006 Dec 1; 25 (10): 1200-4.

PurposeTo use a novel porcine dry eye model (pDEM) to study the effect of various artificial tears on corneal abrasion and epithelial cell death under severe "dry eye" conditions.MethodsA 60-second lacrimation-blink interval, which simulates a severe dry eye condition, was set up with our novel pDEM. The corneal protective effect of lubricating the eye for 4 hours with Dulbecco phosphate-buffered saline (DPBS, as control; n = 20) and with 3 types of commercially available artificial tears (n = 17 for each) that contained different lubricating agents was studied. Effect was determined in terms of the change in fluorescein staining grade (on a 0-4 point scale with 0.5 increments) of the cornea and the number of dead cells (by trypan blue staining) on the corneal surface.ResultsMedian increase in fluorescein grading (median) in corneas treated for 4 hours with artificial tears containing sodium hyaluronate or hydroxypropyl methylcellulose was significantly (P < 0.002) smaller than with artificial tears containing balanced saline with an unknown demulcent or the DPBS control. The numbers of dead epithelial cells in the central corneas lubricated with artificial tears containing sodium hyaluronate or hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (229 +/- 71 and 221 +/- 65 [SD], respectively) were also significantly (P < 0.005) smaller than those in the corneas of eyes lubricated with artificial tears containing balanced saline with an unknown demulcent or DPBS alone (328 +/- 106 and 341 +/- 113, respectively).ConclusionResults show that artificial tears containing sodium hyaluronate or hydroxypropyl methylcellulose as lubricating agents give enhanced corneal protection against desiccation and show the use of this novel pDEM model in evaluating corneal protection from desiccation.

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