Abstract: Infrared thermal imaging to detect dry eye

Not much detail here, but diagnosing dry eye by surface temperature sounds kind of interesting.

Noncontact detection of dry eye using a custom designed infrared thermal image system.

Dry eye syndrome is a common irritating eye disease. Current clinical diagnostic methods are invasive and uncomfortable for patients. This study developed a custom designed noncontact infrared (IR) thermal image system to measure the spatial and temporal variation of the ocular surface temperature over a 6-second eye-open period. This research defined two parameters: the temperature difference value and the compactness value to represent the temperature change and the irregularity of the temperature distribution on the tear film. Using these two parameters, this study achieved discrimination results for the dry eye and the normal eye groups; the sensitivity is 0.84, the specificity is 0.83, and the receiver operating characteristic area is 0.87. The results suggest that the custom designed IR thermal image system may be used as an effective tool for noncontact detection of dry eye.

J Biomed Opt. 2011 Apr;16(4):046009.
Su TY, Hwa CK, Liu PH, Wu MH, Chang DO, Su PF, Chang SW, Chiang HK.
National Yang-Ming University, Institute of Biomedical Engineering,