Vitamin A palmitate eye gel, sodium hyaluronate eye drop improves dry eye in patients with thyroid eye disease

Amongst patients with thyroid eye disease (TED) experiencing dry eye syndrome, use of a vitamin A palmitate gel was found to improve tear film stability and a sodium hyaluronate eye drop resulted in improvements in discomfort, according to a study.

Patients in this study had inactive mild or moderate-to-severe TED with dry eye syndrome and were randomly divided to receive vitamin A palmitate eye gel 3 times/day for 1 month or sodium hyaluronate eye drops.

A total of 80 patients started the trial, of which 64 completed treatment. At baseline, there were no significant differences between the groups.

In eyes treated with the gel there was a significant improvement in break-up time and corneal fluorescence staining grade (effective rate = 91.2%) and in eyes treated with the drops, there was significant improvement in ocular surface disease index score and corneal fluorescence staining grade (effective rate = 67.7%). Break-up time was also significantly longer in the group treated with gel than in the group treated with drops.

Reference
Sun R, Yang M, Lin C, et al. A clinical study of topical treatment for thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy with dry eye syndrome. BMC Ophthalmol. 2023;23(1):72. doi: 10.1186/s12886-023-02805-8. PMID: 36803227.