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Objectives: To investigate tear function and ocular surface disease (OSD) findings in patients with glaucoma who received antiglaucoma medication in one eye and trabeculectomy surgery in the other eye. Materials and Methods: The patient group included 38 eyes of 19 patients who had undergone trabeculectomy surgery with mitomycin C (MMC) treatment in one eye at least 6 months prior. These eyes were followed up without medication while the fellow eye continued receiving antiglaucomatous medication. The control group comprised 20 eyes of 20 healthy individuals. Demographic data, follow-up period after trabeculectomy, antiglaucoma medications, number of drops per day, and duration of medication were recorded. Tear break-up time (BUT), corneal and conjunctival fluorescein staining, Schirmer II test, and conjunctival impression cytology were performed. Results: A statistically significant difference was observed in BUT, corneal and conjunctival fluorescein staining, Schirmer II test, and Nelson staging levels in both eyes of patients with glaucoma compared to the control group (p=0.05). Although not statistically significant, BUT, Schirmer II test, punctate staining, and Nelson staging results showed improvement with increasing postoperative time. Conclusion: In our patient group, antiglaucoma medications and trabeculectomy surgery with MMC induced OSD to a similar degree. No superiority was observed between trabeculectomy with MMC and antiglaucoma drops in terms of OSD incidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: We tried to understand whether or not there is an association between platelet (PLT) count of peripheric blood and severity of sickle cell diseases (SCDs). Methods: SCDs patients with red blood cell (RBC) transfusions of less than 50 units in their lives were put into the first and 50 units or higher were put into the second groups. Results: The study included 224 patients (70.8%) in the first and 92 patients (29.1%) in the second groups (p<0.001). Mean ages were similar in both groups (28.9 and 30.0 years, respectively, p>0.05). Male ratio was significantly higher in the second group (45.5% versus 64.1%, p<0.001). Although smoking was also higher in the second group (12.0% versus 17.3%, p>0.05), the difference was nonsignificant probably due to the small sample size of the second group. Mean units of transfused RBCs were 12.9 and 99.0 in the groups (p<0.000). Although white blood cell and PLT counts of peripheric blood were higher in the second group, the difference was only significant for the PLT counts (p= 0.005), probably due to the same reason above. Number of painful crises per year, digital clubbing, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, leg ulcers, stroke, chronic renal disease, and coronary heart disease were higher in the second group, significantly (p<0.05 for all). Conclusion: SCDs are chronic inflammatory processes on endothelium mainly at the capillary level, and there was a highly significant association between PLT count and severity of the SCDs. So low-dose aspirin will probably be beneficial for patients with SCDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]