A measurable subjective patient response to the dry eye

Patients with "dry eyes" are often poor prospects for successful contact lens wear. Screening out these patients could improve contact lens practice. Currently used diagnostic tests, such as the Schirmer strip test or the time for tear film breakup, are not very effective in identifying the dry eye patient who may have trouble wearing a contact lens. A new test is described here that asks the patient to report the time to disappearance of the pillar-like flare image seen above a disk light source. A flare image is created by the tear prism in the lower lid margin. This test, when it was applied to a small group composed of young, middle-aged, and elderly adults, was able to correlate rapid disappearance of the flare image with the presence of typical dry eye syndrome complaints in two subjects.