Purpose: To evaluate the relationship between androgen levels and subjective and objective measures of dry eye syndrome (DES).
Methods: 263 Male patients from the Miami Veterans Affairs Medical Center eye clinic aged ≥50 were recruited for this prospective cross-sectional study. Patients completed the Dry Eye Questionnaire 5, underwent tear film evaluation and had serum androgen levels measured. The correlations between androgen levels, DES composite scores, DES symptoms, and global, lipid, and aqueous tear film parameters were evaluated.
Results: 263 Patients were examined with a mean age of 69 (50-95). There was no association between composite DES scores (generated using latent class analysis) and androgen levels. Eyes with high DES scores (0.95-1.0) had higher levels of sex hormone-binding globulin (p=0.03) and lower levels of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) (p=0.02), androstenedione (A) (p=0.02), and androstane-3α,17β-diol glucuronide (p=0.03) compared to eyes with intermediate (0.05-0.95) or low (0-0.05) scores. There were no strong correlations between tear film measures and androgen levels. Regarding global parameters, a weak inverse correlation was found between corneal staining and A (r=-0.17,p=0.009). For lipid parameters, a weak correlation existed between tear break-up time and A (r=0.15, p=0.02). When considering aqueous and lipid deficiency independently, the association between TBUT and A only existed with aqueous tear deficiency (r=0.66, p=0.002). Regarding aqueous parameters, a weak correlation existed between Schirmer's test and DHEAS (r=0.13, p=0.047) and A (r=.21, p=.001).
Conclusions: There was a weak correlation between higher levels of androstenedione and healthier global, lipid and aqueous tear film parameters.
Written by:
Azcarate PM, Venincasa VD, Galor A, Feuer WJ, Stanczyk F, Schally AV. Are you the author?
Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, 900 NW 17th Street, Miami, FL, 33125, United States; Department of Pathology Department of Medicine Divisions of Oncology and Endocrinology, University of Miami, 1611 Northwest 12th Avenue, Miami, FL, 33136, United States; Department of Pathology, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, South Florida VA Foundation for Research and Education, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, NW 16th Street, Miami, FL, 1201, United States.
Reference: Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2014 Jul 3. pii: IOVS-14-14689.
doi: 10.1167/iovs.14-14689
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 24994872
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