DryEyeClub: Seeing Outcomes 2025

Chaired by Dr Maria Cabrera Aguas, post-doctoral researcher at the Sydney Medical School, Corneal Research Group, webinar presentations explored the impact of dry eye on quality of life, emerging findings from the international registry, practical strategies for symptom management, and the lived experience of patients, offering a comprehensive picture of challenges, solutions, and the need for continued research support.

Benefits of the Dry Eye Registry

Professor Stephanie Watson OAM FARVO, Chief investigator of the Save Sight Dry Eye Registry and Head of Ophthalmology and the Corneal Research Group, Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, highlighted the usefulness of the Save Sight Dry Eye Registry in collecting real-world data and the importance in finding the evidence to improve outcomes.

Prof Watson emphasised the Save Sight Dry Eye Registry, which launched in 2021, is being used by both optometrists and ophthalmologists globally to inform on findings from the real-world patients in everyday clinical practices.

The registry comprises data from more than 1,000 eyes collected over the long-term, including information on patient reported outcomes, clinical findings and other existing health conditions, treatments, effectiveness, and safety.

Benefits of registries included being able to gather and analyse treatment and outcomes in everyday clinical practice in ‘real-world’ patients. ¹ Professor Watson noted that the registry can also be used for benchmarking, as users can compare their patient treatment and outcomes with their peers and gain CPD accreditation from RANZCO and Optometry Australia.

Quality of Life

Dr Himal Kandel, the Kornhauser Research Fellow at the Sydney Medical School, presented on understanding the quality of life (QoL) impact of dry eye disease. He discussed the multi-dimensional concepts of QoL measurements and the relevance central to patient care. ²

Dr Kandel highlighted the advantages of using patient-reported outcome measuring tools such as dry eye symptom questionnaires in routine clinical practice while managing dry eye patients. The questionnaires are easy to use and the data from routine collection over time is easily tracked in the registry to monitor outcomes (Figure 1).

The data generated from such validated tools minimise the disparity between clinicians and patients’ perspective and enhance shared decision making by raising patients’ voice, Dr Kandel said.

Such patients reported outcome data, Dr Kandel explained, engage patients in their care journey and enable clinicians and researchers to determine the benefits of treatments to patients and find ways to improve outcomes.

Analysing the Data

Dr Ngozi Chidi-Egboka, Research Associate and Clinical trial coordinator for Corneal Research Group at the Sydney Medical School, presented on the ‘Real world outcomes of dry eye disease symptoms and clinical signs from everyday clinical practice’. The talk focussed on the presentation and management of dry eye disease using data from the Sight Dry Eye Registry, the first international interdisciplinary registry to collect high quality outcome data from patients with dry eye disease in routine clinical practice.

The data presented was contributed by 16 optometrists and ophthalmologists from 12 practices across Australia, France, Nepal, Nigeria, Spain, and the United Kingdom comprising 3,618 clinical visits of 868 patients.

Dr Chidi-Egboka highlighted evaporative dry eye disease as a common type of dry eye disease among patients seen by clinicians in everyday practice and was associated with severe symptoms. She also highlighted that clinicians should be aware that the mental health of patients with symptomatic dry eye disease may be compromised.^{1, 2} Patients with severe dry eye disease symptoms demonstrated symptoms of anxiety and depression.

The large real-world dataset showed that female sex may be associated with worse clinical signs. Meibomian gland dysfunction and ocular surface staining were common among patients. The majority of patients required a range of treatments including artificial tears, anti-inflammatories and other therapeutic procedures (Figure 2).

Dr Chidi-Egboka emphasised that the Save Sight Dry Eye Registry enabled the collection of large amounts of dry eye disease clinical data and facilitated analysis

of what was happening with patients suffering from dry eye disease in everyday clinical practice. In clinical practice, more awareness of differences in patients’ characteristics may help in understanding the relationship between symptoms and signs of dry eye disease. The real-world data of dry eye disease will be useful for developing recommendations for dry eye disease diagnosis, management and outcomes monitoring.

Managing Comfort

Professor Jennifer P Craig, a therapeutic research optometrist, and Professor in Ophthalmology and Head of the Ocular Surface Laboratory at the University of Auckland in New Zealand delivered a talk entitled, ‘In the blink of an eye: simple solutions to enhance everyday eye comfort and health in dry eye disease’. Prof Craig discussed the clinical characteristics of the ocular surface and tear film and the interconnection with the central nervous system and how any deviation from normal can impact on quality of life of affected individuals.

She highlighted the impact on economic productivity and financial burden on individuals and society due to work absenteeism or, more often, presenteeism – the reduced ability to function well at work, in cases of severe dry eye disease.

Prof Craig also discussed the interplay between deficiencies in tear film function, eyelid abnormalities, ocular surface anatomical misalignment, and poor eye blinking in causing dry eye disease, and how these dysfunctions might be remedied.

She highlighted dry eye disease risk factors including age, sex, ethnicity, systemic health conditions and medications, associated ocular conditions, contact lens wear, ophthalmic surgery, and lifestyle factors, e.g., digital screen use, sleep disorders, diet, and other environmental factors. Prof Craig discussed simple interventions including lifestyle modifications that may be considerations for all patients with dry eye types. She discussed use of eyelid warm compresses for oil gland deficiency and lid cleansing for eyelid inflammation, moisture retaining spectacles, contact lenses, punctal plugs and/or tear supplements for controlling aqueous deficient dry eye disease, and blinking exercises to encourage better blinking habits and reduce excessive tear evaporation. She noted that a series of blinking exercises showed immediate effects, and blinking every 20 minutes throughout working hours offered sustained improvements in blink frequency, blink completeness, as well as dry eye symptoms and clinical signs; but may be compromised by lack of compliance.^{3, 4} She recommended evidence-based guidance for artificial tear drops use to ensure targeted therapy based on dry eye disease type. Knowledge about dry eye disease condition, how it arises and how it can be managed is improving, and working with eye care practitioners to determine the best solution is important.

Lived Experience and Research

Ms Robyn Cooper shared her lived experience suffering from dry eye disease for nearly 20 years. She echoed the major impact dry eye disease has had on her life and wellbeing, including having to reduce her work hours. Ms Cooper noted that she hasn’t “really found anything that has improved her situation significantly, but she’s “positive and hopeful that something will become available through research that will help, sooner rather than later”.

Ms Amanda Craze, Associate Director of Development, Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney highlighted the challenges eye researchers face in Australia and the impact on their careers. Ms Craze discussed how philanthropic research support and donations from the patients and the community can have an important role in supporting eye disease research such as the Save Sight Dry Eye Disease research funding.

Attendee Feedback

Initial questions designed to provide information on how dry eye impacts everyday life and wellbeing were asked at the beginning of the webinar; 75% reported feeling worried and anxious about their dry eye disease condition.

Post-webinar feedback from DryEyeClub 2025 attendees was very positive. More than 79% of the attendees said the webinar was extremely worthwhile, easy to follow and engaging. All attendees reported gaining new knowledge about dry eye disease from the content by speakers and were extremely likely to attend future webinars.

The event was held in July to coincide with Dry Eye Disease Awareness month. The recording of the DryEyeClub: Seeing Outcomes 2025 webinar is available at: youtu.be/Lr6QU_3L6_U.

Clinicians can use the registry without cost to monitor their practice outcomes. To join or know more about the registry, visit: savesightregistries.org/fight-corneal-blindness/ or contact: ssi.ssr@sydney.edu.au.

Financial disclosure
The establishment of the Save Sight Dry Eye Registry was supported by unrestricted educational grants from Novartis and Seqirus.

Dr Ngozi Chidi-Egboka FNCO FAAO is a Postdoctoral Research Associate, Clinical Trial Coordinator, and Sub-Investigator with the Corneal Research Group, The University of Sydney.