Evaluation of fundus photography as a Prognostic Tool in dry eye disease

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22812266

Keywords:

dry eye disease, meibography, ocular surface imaging, tear film, prognosis

Abstract

Background: Dry eye disease is staged largely through photographic techniques, ocular surface staining, infrared meibography, and lipid layer interferometry, that form the substrate for objective severity grading [1,3].

Objective: This review evaluates fundus- and ocular-surface-photography-derived imaging as a prognostic tool in dry eye disease, examining how imaging-based severity indices relate to symptoms and treatment response.

Methods: We synthesized workshop reports, meibography and interferometry validation studies, and studies correlating imaging indices with symptom scores and clinical outcome.

Findings: Staining photography, infrared meibography, and lipid layer interferometry give reproducible severity indices [4,16,21], but correlation with symptom-based outcomes is only moderate and strongest when combined with a functional measure [26,29].

Conclusions: Photographic imaging is a mature severity battery for dry eye disease, best used as one component of a multimodal prognostic strategy rather than a stand-alone predictor [11,8].

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Published

2026-04-02