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HealthDay News — A water-free cyclosporine solution is effective for treating moderate-to-severe dry eye disease (DED), according to a study published online April 6 in JAMA Ophthalmology.
Esen K. Akpek, MD, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and colleagues evaluated whether water-free cyclosporine eye drop, 0.1%, is effective in treating DED. The analysis included 834 study participants randomly assigned to twice-daily cyclosporine solution or vehicle for 29 days.
The researchers found that participants treated with cyclosporine solution had greater improvement in total corneal fluorescein staining (tCFS) than the vehicle group (−4.0 versus −3.6 grades) at day 29 (change [∆], −0.4; 95% CI, −0.8 to 0; P =.03). Treatment benefits in the dryness score from baseline were seen in both groups: −12.2 points for cyclosporine and −13.6 points for vehicle (∆ = 1.4; 95% CI, −1.8 to 4.6; P =.38). Clinically meaningful reductions of 3 grades or higher in tCFS were achieved by 71.6% in the cyclosporine group versus 59.7% in the vehicle group (∆ = 12.6%; 95% CI, 6.0 to 19.3% P <.001). Compared with nonresponders, these responders showed greater improvement in symptoms at day 29, including dryness (∆ = −4.6; 95% CI, −8.0 to −1.2; P =.007) and blurred vision (Δ = −3.5; 95% CI, −6.6 to −4.0; P =.03).
“The rapid onset and magnitude of improvements on the corneal epithelial damage are potential differentiators to existing therapies,” the authors write.
Several authors disclosed ties to Novaliq, which funded the study.
