Comparative study between the Meibomian pulsation system and the warm compress treatment for MGD

Abstract

AIM:To compare the efficacy and safety of LipiFlow pulsation system and traditional Meibomian warm compress treatment for patients with Meibomian gland dysfunction(MGD). METHODS: Totally 50 patients with MGD were selected, whom were randomly divided into experimental group(25 cases)and control group(25 cases). The experimental group underwent a single treatment with the LipiFlow pulsation system. Subjects of the control group were subjected to a daily 15-minute warm compress treatment, lasting 2wk. Comparative analyses were made during moments before and 4, 8 and 12wk after treatments, according to the evaluation of eight indexes including subjective symptoms, tear film break-up time(TBUT), tear film lipid layer thickness(LLT), Meibomian deletions etc. Those analyses were made using LSD-t test, to analyze the effectiveness evaluation parameters at different time points. Independent samples t-test was employed to compare those statistic results between experimental group and control group. RESULTS: Statistically significant differences were observed on Ocular Surface Disease Index(OSDI), the quality of Meibomian secretions and Schirmer test(PPCONCLUSION: A single treatment with the LipiFlow pulsation system and warm compress treatment are effective and safe for MGD, while the former is better.

Keywords

• Meibomian gland dysfunction
• Meibomian pulsation system
• warm compress
• comparative study
• comparative study