Efficacy of IPL Treatment of Dry Eye and Ocular Rosacea
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03194698. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
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Official title
Pilot Study to Examine Efficacy and Cytokines Levels After Meibomian Gland Expression (MGX) With and Without Intense Pulsed Light Treatment (IPL)
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Dry eye disease (DED) is a common condition that causes ocular discomfort and reduces visual acuity. The two categories of DED are evaporative dry eye and aqueous deficient dry eye. Both conditions can involve pathology of the meibomian glands, lacrimal glands, lids, tear film and surface cells. Meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) is the leading cause of evaporative dry eye and contributes to aqueous deficient dry eye. The goal of MGD therapy is to provide long term improvement of symptoms for patients by improving the quality of meibum, increasing meibum flow, improving tear film stability and decreasing inflammation. Commonly used therapies include preservative free drops, omega-3 fatty acid supplementation, topical cyclosporine, serum tears, topical azithromycin, oral doxycycline, moisture chambers, intraductal probing, lib margin exfoliation, automated thermal pulsation, warm compresses, among other. Despite this variety of symptoms, patients often do not experience complete or long term relief of symptoms. Forced meibomian gland expression (MGX) has been shown to be an effective method of rehabilitating meibomian glands and improving dry eye symptoms. The eyelid margins are forcefully compressed to express gland contents. Research has shown improvement in patient symptoms with the use of MGX. Intense pulsed light (IPL) have been used in dermatology to treat various conditions. Patients with DED who have tried other therapies and found no relief, often resort to IPL as a last resort. Research has shown IPL alone may be effective in improving patient symptoms. In addition, such studies have failed to show significant adverse events with the use of IPL. Here, we propose a prospective, randomized, case controlled clinical pilot study to examine the efficacy for both subjective and objective measures. 20 patients with DED will be recruited and will be randomly assigned to one of two groups: MGX alone or MGX with IPL. Objective measures will include tear cytokine levels, impression cytology, meibography, tear osmolarity and others. Subjective measures will include quality of life screening tools. We hypothesize that the use of MGX with IPL will lead to greater improvement in subjective dry eye symptoms and objective measures. Given the lack of adverse effects reported in the literature, we do not anticipate adverse effects in our study. Rochester staff Drs. Faustch and Bourne are providing clinical research advice but have no contact with subjects or biospecimens.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT03194698
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 20 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Interventions
- Intense Pulsed Light Treatment (IPL) Device
- Meibomian Gland Expression Procedure
Device · Procedure
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years to 100 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Aug 16, 2017
- Primary completion
- Dec 5, 2018
- Completion
- Dec 5, 2018
- Last update posted
- Jan 2, 2020
2017 – 2018
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mayo Clinic in Arizona | Scottsdale | Arizona | 85259 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03194698, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Jan 2, 2020 · Synced Sep 3, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT03194698 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.