Relationship between ocular surface disease and patient's satisfaction among cataract surgical patients in Nigeria

Study of IL-17 and Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-1 in Conjunctivochalasis Using Correlation Analysis

PURPOSE

The aim of this study was to observe the expression of interleukin (IL)-17 and intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-1 in conjunctivochalasis (CCH) and to analyze the correlations between cytokines and the severity of CCH.

METHODS

Serum samples were collected from 22 patients with CCH and 18 normal controls (NCs). The Ocular Surface Disease Index, tear film break-up time, Schirmer I test, and corneal fluorescein staining were used to evaluate the ocular surface signs and symptoms. The concentrations of IL-17, IL-23, and ICAM-1 in serum and cellular supernatants were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and the gene expression levels of cytokines were measured by a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. The relationships between serum concentrations of IL-17, IL-23, and ICAM-1 with clinical ocular surface parameters in CCH were analyzed using the Spearman correlation analysis.

RESULTS

The concentrations of IL-17 and ICAM-1 in serum and cellular supernatants of CCH were significantly higher than those of NCs (all P < 0.001). The concentrations of IL-23 in serum and cellular supernatants of CCH showed no significant difference from those of NCs ( P > 0.05). The mRNA expression levels of IL-17 and ICAM-1 in conjunctival fibroblasts of CCH were significantly higher than those of NCs (all P < 0.001). The mRNA expression of IL-23 in conjunctival fibroblasts of CCH was higher than that of NCs, without a significant difference ( P > 0.05). Furthermore, the serum concentrations of IL-17 and ICAM-1 were positively correlated with Ocular Surface Disease Index and fluorescein staining (all P < 0.05), and negatively correlated with break-up time and Schirmer I test of CCH (all P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The expression levels of IL-17 and ICAM-1 were significantly increased in CCH serum and associated with the disease severity. We postulate that IL-17 and ICAM-1 may play a role in the pathogenesis of CCH. IL-17 and ICAM-1 antagonists may be a potential treatment option for CCH in the future.

Applications of Infrared Thermography in Ophthalmology

Body temperature is one of the key vital signs for determining a disease’s severity, as it reflects the thermal energy generated by an individual’s metabolism. Since the first study on the relationship between body temperature and diseases by Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich at the end of the 19th century, various forms of thermometers have been developed to measure body temperature. Traditionally, methods for measuring temperature can be invasive, semi-invasive, and non-invasive. In recent years, great technological advances have reduced the cost of thermographic cameras, which allowed extending their use. Thermal cameras capture the infrared radiation of the electromagnetic spectrum and process the images to represent the temperature of the object under study through a range of colors, where each color and its hue indicate a previously established temperature. Currently, cameras have a sensitivity that allows them to detect changes in temperature as small as 0.01 °C. Along with its use in other areas of medicine, thermography has been used at the ocular level for more than 50 years. In healthy subjects, the literature reports that the average corneal temperature ranges from 32.9 to 36 °C. One of the possible sources of variability in normal values is age, and other possible sources of variation are gender and external temperature. In addition to the evaluation of healthy subjects, thermography has been used to evaluate its usefulness in various eye diseases, such as Graves’ orbitopathy, and tear duct obstruction for orbital diseases. The ocular surface is the most studied area. Ocular surface temperature is influenced by multiple conditions, one of the most studied being dry eye; other diseases studied include allergic conjunctivitis and pterygium as well as systemic diseases such as carotid artery stenosis. Among the corneal diseases studied are keratoconus, infectious keratitis, corneal graft rejection, the use of scleral or soft contact lenses, and the response to refractive or cataract surgery. Other diseases where thermographic features have been reported are glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration, retinal vascular occlusions, intraocular tumors as well as scleritis, and other inflammatory eye diseases.