Abstract: Meibum expressibility scale

The last study I'm going to look at tonight... how nice that it's actually something that I'm interested in.

Wouldn't it be nice if doctors would standardize on something like this? Sounds like they need a fair amount more work on it first. Besides which, we still need to get to a point when more doctors know enough about meibomian glands to realize they need to examine them in the first place!

Development of the 4-3-2-1 Meibum Expressibility Scale.

OBJECTIVES:
With increased interest in the assessment of meibomian gland dysfunction and evaporative dry eye, there remains a deficit in simple, clinically applicable grading scales for gland expression. A new scale to assess meibum expressibility is described.

METHODS:
A meibum expressibility scale was developed using a new standardized meibomian gland expression device, which provides constant pressure along the inferior lid. For the scale development, 30 patients (53.0±8.49 years; 93.33% female) with mild-to-moderate dry eye were compared with 13 normal, non-dry eye subjects (25.6±4.3 years; 46.1% female) using the meibum expression device developed by Korb and Blackie. The device was placed 4 glands lateral to the inferior punctum and 1 mm below the lash line and was held stable for 15 sec. The glands expressing meibum were counted. The weighted κ statistic was used to evaluate the extent of agreement, and a receiver operating characteristic curve was created to test the proposed scale.

RESULTS:
The mean number of glands that expressed from the worse lid in the normal group was 3.54±1.61, whereas 1.53±1.28 glands expressed in the dry eye group. In the dry eye group, 1 subject showed 5 glands expressing, and 29 demonstrated scores of 4 or less. In the normal group, 3 or more glands were expressible in 11 of 13 subjects.

CONCLUSIONS:
A 4-3-2-1 scoring system is proposed, whereby 4 or greater=normal expressibility, 3=mildly reduced expressibility, 2=moderately reduced expressibility, and 1 or lesser=severely reduced expressibility. Further validation of the scale is warranted.

Eye Contact Lens. 2012 Jan 13. [Epub ahead of print]
Meadows JF, Ramamoorthy P, Nichols JJ, Nichols KK.
From the College of Optometry, The Ohio State University (J.F.M., P.R.); and College of Optometry, University of Houston (J.J.N., K.K.N.).