Screening Evaporative Dry Eyes Severity Using an Infrared Image.

Area of Science:

• Ophthalmology
• Medical Imaging
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Dry eye disease (DED) is a prevalent ophthalmic condition with varied presentations.
• Current DED diagnosis relies on a combination of subjective and objective clinical tests.
• Evaporative DED presents unique diagnostic challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the efficacy of a handheld smartphone-based infrared thermal (IRT) camera for screening symptomatic evaporative DED.
• To assess the correlation between ocular surface temperature (OST) and DED severity.
• To determine the diagnostic potential of IRT imaging in DED detection.

Main Methods:

• An observational, sex-matched control study involving 184 participants (138 DED, 46 normal).
• IRT images captured using a smartphone-based camera to measure OST at 8 anatomical regions of interest (ROIs).
• DED severity assessed via noninvasive tear breakup time, fluorescein staining, and OSDI questionnaire.

Main Results:

• Ocular surface temperature (OST) was significantly higher in DED participants compared to the non-DED group (p < 0.05) for most ROIs.
• The nasal limbus ROI exhibited the strongest Pearson correlation with DED severity (0.64, p < 0.001).
• The nasal limbus achieved the highest area under the curve (AUC) of 0.79 for discriminating DED vs. non-DED eyes, with high sensitivity (0.96) and specificity (0.91).

Conclusions:

• Handheld smartphone-based IRT imaging serves as a rapid, noninvasive, and hygienic screening tool for DED.
• IRT imaging can effectively discriminate between DED and non-DED eyes.
• This technology shows potential to reduce patient inconvenience associated with conventional DED diagnostic tests.