Therapeutic Effect of Intense Pulsed Light on Ocular Demodicosis

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To evaluate the clinical efficacy of Lumenis® M22^TM intense pulsed light (IPL) in reduction of ocular Demodex infestation in eyelashes in a prospective study.

Methods: Forty patients with ocular demodicosis were recruited. Then half were randomly picked to receive the IPL treatment, while the other half got 5% tea tree oil (as the control group). Demodex counts, the ocular surface disease index (OSDI) score, lid margin abnormalities, conjunctival congestion, tear break-up time (TBUT), corneal staining with fluorescein, meibomian gland (MG) expressibility, meibum quality, modified Schirmer I test with anaesthetic (SIT), were assessed on the day before treatment and after treatment of 30 and 90 days, respectively. Changes in the parameters were compared between the IPL group and the control group on the days after treatment of 30 and 90 days.

Results: No differences were observed in Demodex counts, lid margin abnormalities, conjunctival congestion, corneal staining with fluorescein, MG expressibility, SIT in the two groups on the days after treatment of 30 and 90 days (p > 0.05), whereas there was a statistically significant difference in the OSDI score, TBUT, meibum quality (p < 0.05). The Demodex eradication rate was more thorough in the IPL group (100%) than in the control group (75%).

Conclusions: IPL shows the preferably therapeutic potential for ocular Demodicosis.

KEYWORDS:

• Demodex
• intense pulsed light
• ocular surface
• ocular demodicosis

Abbreviations

Intense pulsed light	=	IPL
Tear break-up time	=	TBUT
Meibomian gland	=	MG
Ocular surface disease index	=	OSDI
In vivo confocal microscopy	=	IVCM
Tea tree oil	=	TTO
Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat	=	EENT
Corneal fluorescein staining	=	CFS
Schirmer I test	=	SIT
Cylindrical dandruff	=	CD
Light microscopic examination	=	LME
Institute for Eye Research	=	IER

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Naiqing Zhao of the Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health at Fudan University for assistance with the statistical analyses in this study.

Declarations

This study was conducted in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki for research involving human participants and was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat (EENT) Hospital of Fudan University. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants before the examination.

Consent for publication

Written informed consent to publish was obtained from all participants before the examination.

Availability of data and material

The main data of our study presented in the tables of the main paper

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests

Authors’ contributions

The manuscript was written through contributions of all authors. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Program of Shanghai Technology Research Leader (No. 18XD1424500) and Science and technology support project (No.18441902500) of shanghai science and technology commission.