Marta A, Marques JH, Almeida D, José D, Sousa P, Barbosa I. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the ocular surface. World J Clin Cases 2022; 10(27): 9619-9627 [PMID: 36186209 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i27.9619]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Ana Marta, Doctor, MD, MSc, Doctor, Department of Ophthalmology, Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto, Largo do Prof. Abel Salazar, Porto 4099-001, Portugal. analuisamarta2@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Medicine, General & Internal
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Cases. Sep 26, 2022; 10(27): 9619-9627 Published online Sep 26, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i27.9619
Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the ocular surface
Ana Marta, Joao Heitor Marques, Daniel Almeida, Diana José, Paulo Sousa, Irene Barbosa
Ana Marta, Joao Heitor Marques, Daniel Almeida, Diana José, Paulo Sousa, Irene Barbosa, Department of Ophthalmology, Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto, Porto 4099-001, Portugal
Author contributions: All the authors had full access to all the data and take full responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis; Marta A, Marques JH, and Barbosa I were responsible for conceiving this research, gathering the data, presenting the results, and creating the manuscript; Barbosa I supervised this project and contributed with their expertise to its conclusion; and all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: Approval was obtained from the “Departamento de Ensino, Formação e Investigação” (DEFI) (115-DEFI-118-CE).
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because it was waived by the institutional review board.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Data used for analysis is anonymously available upon request.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ana Marta, Doctor, MD, MSc, Doctor, Department of Ophthalmology, Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto, Largo do Prof. Abel Salazar, Porto 4099-001, Portugal. analuisamarta2@gmail.com
Received: December 17, 2021 Peer-review started: December 17, 2021 First decision: January 26, 2022 Revised: January 27, 2022 Accepted: August 21, 2022 Article in press: August 21, 2022 Published online: September 26, 2022
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background
There have been increased reports of dry eyes in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic era.
Research motivation
To study the ocular surface to better understand the reason for exacerbated dry eye symptoms in the COVID-19 pandemic era.
Research objectives
The purpose was to analyze the differences in tear film properties from the pre- and post-pandemic COVID-19 era.
Research methods
It was a retrospective comparative study. Patients were divided into 3 groups according to the date of multimodal ocular surface evaluation: (1) Group 1 if it was before Portugal lockdown decision (from August 2019 to March 2020); (2) Group 2 if it was after Portugal lockdown decision but without mask mandate (from April 2020 to October 2020); and (3) Group 3 if it was after Portugal lockdown but with mask mandate in health public highway (from November 2020 to April 2021).
Research results
Over time, there was an increase in the lipid layer thickness, a decrease in the area of the meibomian glands, and a decrease in the blink rate. These changes seemed related to face masks and screen time.
Research conclusions
There were differences in tear film properties comparing data from the pre- and post-pandemic of the COVID-19 era.
Research perspectives
The ophthalmologist must be aware of these changes and educate patients according to the most likely potential causal factor.
