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Dry eye disease update How to read TFOS DEWS II and apply to practice

November 11, 2017 - Liz Hillman on Eyeworld
The latest reports from the Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society International Dry Eye Workshop can be read in full or in pieces, depending on a physician’s needs The Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society (TFOS) International Dry Eye Workshop II (DEWS) unveiled its TFOS DEWS II reports in July.1 The sequel to the original TFOS DEWS2 is more than twice as long, providing an even more in-depth look at the various aspects of dry eye disease (DED) and updates based on new understandings, discoveries, and innovations that have occurred within the last 10 years. The 2017 TFOS DEWS II is the result of 12 subcommittees composed of 150 experts from 23 countries and more than 2 years of effort. The 2007 TFOS DEWS, in comparison, was a 140-page report composed by seven subcommittees with 58 experts. At the outset of the TFOS DEWS II, Anat Galor, MD, staff physician, Miami VAMC, and professor of clinical ophthalmology, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Miami, said there was discussion of whether TFOS DEWS II should include everything in one massive report or if it should be condensed. In the end, she said, the report “met somewhere in the middle but opted more toward inclusiveness.” TFOS DEWS II consists of 11 individual reports—Introduction, Definition and Classification Report, Sex, Gender, and Hormones Report, Epidemiology Report, Tear Film Report, Pain and Sensation Report, Pathophysiology Report, Iatrogenic Dry Eye Report, Diagnostic Methodology Report, Management and Therapy Report, and Clinical Trial Design Report—which in totality add up to 387 pages. An article on page 30 of this issue of EyeWorld —“An updated look at dry eye disease”—addresses in more detail the goals of TFOS DEWS II and some of the important updates.

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