Vashisht Satinder, Singh Sativir
Regional Institute of Ophthalmology, Pt. B. D. Sharma PGIMS, Rohtak - 124 001, Haryana, India.
Int J Appl Basic Med Res. 2011 Jan;1(1):40-2. doi: 10.4103/2229-516X.81979.
Dry eye is the most common ocular morbidity found in elderly patients. There is no gold standard/standard test for diagnosing dry eye.
The present study was conducted to compare the potential of Phenol Red Thread (PRT) test versus Schirmer Test in diagnosing dry eye.
The study was conducted on 50 patients, aged 40 years and above. History of dry eye symptoms was taken and the symptoms were graded. Six-questions Bandeen Rosch questionnaire was administered to those having symptoms of dry eye. Patients whose response to any of the questions was often/all the time were included in the study. After performing standard clinical examination, Schirmer and PRT tests were done.
PRT is equally sensitive in detecting dry eye, and in addition, it has many advantages as compared to Schirmer. PRT is simpler and more comfortable to the patient and can be done in children. It causes less reflex tearing. Most important is the lesser time consumed (15 seconds) in comparison to Schirmer (5 minutes).
Kappa value between PRT and Schirmer was found to be 0.96 in this study and shows a strong agreement between the two. So, PRT can be considered equally good in detecting dry eye.
干眼症是老年患者中最常见的眼部疾病。目前尚无诊断干眼症的金标准/标准检测方法。
本研究旨在比较酚红棉线试验（PRT）与泪液分泌试验在诊断干眼症方面的潜力。
该研究针对50例年龄在40岁及以上的患者进行。记录干眼症症状病史并对症状进行分级。对有干眼症症状的患者进行六题版班丁·罗施问卷测试。对任何一个问题回答为经常/总是的患者纳入研究。在进行标准临床检查后，进行泪液分泌试验和PRT测试。
PRT在检测干眼症方面同样敏感，此外，与泪液分泌试验相比具有许多优势。PRT更简单，患者更舒适，且可用于儿童。它引起的反射性流泪较少。最重要的是，与泪液分泌试验（5分钟）相比，其耗时更少（15秒）。
本研究中PRT与泪液分泌试验的kappa值为0.96，表明两者之间具有高度一致性。因此，PRT在检测干眼症方面可被认为同样出色。
