Week in review: Caffeine and dry eye, fenofibrate for DR progression, ocular anesthesia disconnect

A weekly roundup of ophthalmic news from around the web.

Drinking caffeinated beverages won’t worsen dry eye disease. This was the finding of a study of data from the long-term Dutch LifeLines cohort, which is following the health and health-related behaviors of nearly 168,000 people during a 30-year period. A sample of 85,302 participants filled out questionnaires related to dry eye disease (DED) and dietary caffeine intake. Eighty-five percent of participants reported a daily caffeine intake equal to at least 1 cup of coffee; 9% had self-reported eye disease. A model adjusting for all medical comorbidities (e.g., cardiovascular disease) found that while greater caffeine intake led to a slightly increased risk of highly symptomatic dry eye, it also led to a decreased risk of a DED diagnosis. Therefore, the authors conclude that “based on current evidence, discouraging caffeine intake in patients with DED on a general basis is not recommended.” Cornea

Can fenofibrate slow the progression of diabetic retinopathy? A US-based cohort database study compared records from 150,252 adults with nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) who were or were not using fenofibrate at baseline. During the observation period, patients taking fenofibrate had a decreased risk of progressing from NPDR to vision-threatening diabetic retinopathy (hazard ratio [HR] 0.92) or proliferative diabetic retinopathy (HR 0.76). However, there was no corresponding reduced risk of developing diabetic macular edema. JAMA Ophthalmology

There's a disconnect between patient and clinician satisfaction regarding anesthesia during ocular surgical procedures. This was the finding of a secondary analysis of a clinical trial of 283 patients undergoing ocular surgery that focused on patient satisfaction with intravenous vs. oral benzodiazepine for sedation. While results from surgeon and anesthesiologist surveys found that clinicians and patients had similar mean satisfaction levels, the correlation between surgeon satisfaction and patient satisfaction was 0.33 (0.32 between anesthesiologist satisfaction and patient satisfaction). This indicates low correlation between provider and patient perception, ultimately indicating that provider satisfaction is not a reliable proxy for patient satisfaction. Clinical Ophthalmology