Evaluation of Dry Eye Severity and Ocular Surface Inflammation in Patients with Pemphigus and Pemphigoid

ABSTRACT

Purpose

To evaluate ocular surface involvement, tear cytokine levels, and histopathological changes in pemphigus and pemphigoid patients.

Methods

A total of 22 patients (15 pemphigus and 7 pemphigoids) and 21 non-diseased controls were enrolled in our study. All participants underwent ocular surface evaluation, which included ocular surface disease index test, slit lamp observation, dry eye-related examination, tear multicytokine analysis, and conjunctival impression cytology.

Results

Pemphigus and pemphigoid patients presented much more severe conjunctivochalasis, corneal epithelial defects, corneal opacity, symblepharon   and dry eye. Severe ocular surface squamous metaplasia and a significant increase of tear macrophage inflammatory protein-1beta, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin (IL)-1β, IL −6, and IL-8 occurred in pemphigus and pemphigoid patients.         

Conclusions

Our results revealed that ocular surface inflammation and dry eye persist in most pemphigus and pemphigoid patients, and do not occur in parallel with the systemic course. Regular ophthalmological examinations and local anti-inflammatory should be provided for pemphigus and pemphigoid patients.

KEYWORDS:

• Conjunctival impression cytology
• dry eye
• ocular surface involvement
• pemphigoid
• pemphigus
• tear cytokine

Consent for publication

All participants signed informed consent forms allowing us to use their data for publication.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study was approved by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University (ethics approval document number: LYF2021028)

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Data availability statement

The datasets used and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request and can be deposited publically. Link of raw data: https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/zzgw9t9jsy/1

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant [number 82171028] and [the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province] under Grant [number 2022JJ30065].