Evaluation of Dry Eye Disease in Children With Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Healthy Controls.

PURPOSE: To compare the symptoms and signs of dry eye disease (DED) in children with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with those in healthy children using common diagnostic tools.

METHODS

Prospective, observational, single-center cohort study. Thirty-four subjects with SLE and 15 healthy subjects were recruited from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. Subjects underwent subjective and objective dry eye assessments using the Canadian Dry Eye Assessment (CDEA) questionnaire, tear film osmolarity, slit lamp examination, tear film break-up time, corneal fluorescein staining, Schirmer test 1, and conjunctival lissamine green staining.

RESULTS

No difference in symptoms was found between children with SLE and healthy children (CDEA score 6.4 ± 5.4 vs. 3.8 ± 3.2; P = 0.09). Corneal staining was more prevalent in children with SLE than in healthy children (58.8% vs. 20.0%; P = 0.01), and children with SLE had higher mean corneal fluorescein staining scores (1.7 ± 1.7 vs. 0.2 ± 0.4; P = 0.002). No statistically significant differences in tear osmolarity, inter-eye differences in tear osmolarity, tear film break-up time, Schirmer test 1, or lissamine green staining scores were observed between the 2 groups. In healthy children, CDEA scores weakly correlated with corneal fluorescein staining score (r = 0.53, P = 0.04). In children with SLE, no correlation between CDEA score and any of the diagnostic test outcomes was found.

CONCLUSIONS

There is discordance between symptoms and signs of DED in children with SLE. Corneal fluorescein staining is essential for the diagnosis of DED in these children.