Reducing Short-Wavelength Blue Light in Dry Eye Patients with Unstable Tear Film Improves Performance on Tests of Visual Acuity.

Abstract

To investigate whether suppression of blue light can improve visual function in patients with short tear break up time (BUT) dry eye (DE).Twenty-two patients with short BUT DE (10 men, 12 women; mean age, 32.4 ± 6.4 years; age range, 23-43 years) and 18 healthy controls (10 men, 8 women; mean age, 30.1 ± 7.4 years; age range, 20-49 years) underwent functional visual acuity (VA) examinations with and without wearing eyeglasses with 50% blue light blocked lenses. The functional VA parameters were starting VA, functional VA, and visual maintenance ratio.The baseline mean values (logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution, logMAR) of functional VA and the visual maintenance ratio were significantly worse in the DE patients than in the controls (P 0.05). The DE patients had significant improvement in mean functional VA and visual maintenance ratio while wearing the glasses (P 0.05).Protecting the eyes from short-wavelength blue light may help to ameliorate visual impairment associated with tear instability in patients with DE. This finding represents a new concept, which is that the blue light exposure might be harmful to visual function in patients with short BUT DE.