The Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society (TFOS) has made available a patient-focused Executive Summary of the TFOS DEWS II Report, providing patients with access to accurate, relevant and comprehensive information about dry eye disease.
“TFOS has created a credible, clear and usable summary of the TFOS DEWS II report for patients,” explained Dr. David A. Sullivan, Schepens Eye Research Institute/Harvard Medical School, and TFOS Founder. “This summary is written in lay language and contains new figures related to the classification and pathophysiology of dry eye disease. In the near future we also hope to make this patient-focused Executive Summary available in Wikipedia.”
TFOS has created a credible, clear and usable summary of the TFOS DEWS II report for patients
The goal of the TFOS DEWS II initiative, which took over two years and involved 150 experts, was to achieve a global consensus concerning multiple aspects of dry eye disease. More specifically, TFOS DEWS II sought to update the definition and classification of the disease; evaluate critically the epidemiology, pathophysiology, mechanism, and impact of this disorder; develop recommendations for the diagnosis, management and therapy of this disease; and recommend the design of clinical trials to assess future interventions for dry eye disease treatment. The TFOS DEWS II initiative was very important, because dry eye disease is a global problem, afflicting hundreds of millions of people around the world, and is one of the most frequent causes of patient visits to eye care practitioners.
TFOS published the TFOS DEWS II Report in The Ocular Surface journal in July 2017. Since then, TFOS has organised events and seminars around the world to increase awareness about the conclusions and recommendations of TFOS DEWS II. The patient version of the TFOS DEWS II Executive Summary is available in the patient section of the TFOS website: https://bit.ly/2MbHHrk
TFOS DEWS II was supported with unrestricted donations from: Alcon, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Shire, Allergan, Bausch+Lomb, Akorn, CooperVision, Dompé, Horus Pharma, Lµbris Biopharma, Oculeve, TearLab, Laboratoires Théa, SIFI, Johnson & Johnson Vision, Quint Health, Scope Ophthalmics, Sun Pharma, Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc. ZEISS Group, and Senju.
The following individuals helped create this patient-focused document: Etty Bitton, OD (Canada), Stephen Cohen, OD (USA), Jennifer P Craig, MCOptom, PhD (New Zealand), Arthur Epstein, OD (USA), Preeya K Gupta, MD (USA), Katherine M Hammitt, MA (USA), Lyndon Jones, FCOptom, PhD (Canada), Allison Porreco Levesque (USA), Cecilia Marini, MD (Argentina), J Daniel Nelson, MD (USA), Leslie O’Dell, OD (USA), Colin Parsloe, MD (UK), Christina Perry (USA), Joanne Shen, MD (USA), Fiona J Stapleton, MCOptom, PhD (Australia), Christopher Starr, MD (USA), Leejee H Suh, MD (USA), Amy Gallant Sullivan (USA), David A Sullivan, PhD (USA), Mark DP Willcox, PhD, DSc (Australia) and James Wolffsohn, FCOptom PhD (UK).
