https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9434-7827
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Abstract
Purpose
To evaluate whether patients with moderate–to–severe meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) will benefit from increasing the number of intense pulsed light (IPL) treatment sessions.
Methods
Ninety Asian adult with MGD (stages 3–4) were enrolled in this retrospective study. In Group1, 30 patients completed the five–session IPL treatment, 63.33% of which also received meibomian gland expression (MGX). In Group 2, 60 patients received three–session IPL treatment, 60.0% of which also accepted MGX. Both intragroup and intergroup analyses were conducted.
Results
The population characteristics, clinical baseline characteristics and therapeutic regimen were comparable between Group1 and Group2. The symptoms and most clinical indices improved after IPL treatment finished in both two groups. No statistical difference was found in any improvement level of all symptomatic and physical indices, including the Ocular surface disease index, tear break–up time, Demodex, corneal staining, meibum quality, meibomian gland expressibility, and MGD stage (all p ≥ 0.05) between the two groups at any time, not only month by month, but also at the terminal visit. However, the response rate of Group1 after the five–session treatment (70.00%) was increased compared to that of Group2 after the three–session treatment (63.33%).
Conclusions
Increasing the number of IPL sessions is beneficial for patients with moderate to severe MGD to increase the response rate of treatment, rather than the improvement level. However, there is no need for patients who respond well to a routine number of IPL treatments to undergo additional IPL sessions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.