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The effect of isotretinoin on meibomian glands in eyes: a pilot study

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Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this pilot study was to quantify the meibography changes in patients administered with oral isotretinoin.

Methods

This prospective pilot study included 30 eyes of 30 patients who received oral isotretinoin treatment due to acne. Each patient underwent a general ophthalmological examination. After fluorescence staining of the ocular surface, the tear film break-up time (TFBUT) test, meibography and Schirmer test were carried out and noted. All of these procedures were applied before the treatment and repeated at 1, 3, and 6 months after the treatment.

Results

The percentage of upper meibomian gland (MG) loss at 3 and 6 months after the treatment was 22.2% (p = 0.001) and 23.6% (p = 0.001), respectively. The percentage of lower MG loss at 3 and 6 months after the treatment was 18.7% (p = 0.001) and 20.7% (p = 0.001), respectively. The corneal fluorescein staining score at 3 and 6 months after treatment was 0.57 (p = 0.001), and 0.47 (p = 0.012), respectively.

Conclusion

These findings show that oral isotretionin treatment may affect MG morphology. The study findings also suggest that isotretinoin may cause tear film instability with Meibomian gland dysfunction and may cause evaporative type of dryness.

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Data availability

The data used to support the findings of this study are included in the article.

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Funding

The authors received no funding support for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Aksaray University Faculty of Medicine, Aksaray, Turkey

    Ugur Gurlevik & Erdogan Yasar

  2. Department of Dermatology, Aksaray University Faculty of Medicine, Aksaray, Turkey

    Funda Kemeriz

Authors
  1. Ugur Gurlevik
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  2. Funda Kemeriz
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  3. Erdogan Yasar
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Contributions

UG: Organization, writing of the manuscript, review, conception and design, organization, critique of the manuscript; FK: Critique of the manuscript, conception and design, data acquisition; EY: Execution of the study, review, statistical analysis, writing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ugur Gurlevik.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors. Institution review board/Ethics Committee has approved the study. (Clinical Trials Registration:2019/03–20).

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Gurlevik, U., Kemeriz, F. & Yasar, E. The effect of isotretinoin on meibomian glands in eyes: a pilot study. Int Ophthalmol 42, 2071–2078 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10792-021-02205-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10792-021-02205-1

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