Therapeutic inhibitors for the treatment of dry eye syndrome

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Dry eye disease (DED), defined as a multifactorial disease of tears and ocular surface, results in symptoms of discomfort, ocular irritation, visual disturbance and tear film instability. This syndrome is accompanied of ocular surface inflammation and it is produced by a deficient activity of the lacrimal functional unit. In addition, it is associated with systemic autoimmune diseases such as Sjögren´s Syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and some drug administration. The treatment of dry eye disease is based on the typical signs and symptoms of dry eye, which are associated with hyperosmolarity, ocular surface inflammation, discomfort, visual disturbance, and tear film instability.

Areas covered: This review is focused on synthetic drugs currently used in clinical practice, from phase III development onwards to treat the ocular surface signs and symptoms of dry eye disease.

Expert opinion: The multifactorial disease and the lack of correlation between signs and symptoms imply that not all the pharmacological approaches will be successful for dry eye. The correct design of the clinical trials, with appropriate endpoints, and the type of dry eye under study are complicated but mandatory. The anti-inflammatory and secretagogues drugs are both the main compounds to currently treat the dry eye disease.

KEYWORDS:

• Ocular surface inflammation
• tear film stability
• secretagogues
• dry eye

Article highlights

• Dry eye is an complex pathology with different causes including systemic autoimmune diseases, complicating its diagnose and treatment.

• The current dry eye treatment is based on anti-inflammatory and secretagogues compounds.

• The research of new compounds to treat dry eye are focused in the same families of current treatment: anti-inflammatories and secretagogues.

• It is important the proper diagnose of dry eye and its severity for selecting the correct treatment.

This box summarizes key points contained in the article.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by the research grants SAF2013-44416-R, RETICS RD12/0034/0003 and Universidad Complutense PR1/07-14890