The precorneal tear film and 'dry eyes'

In an examination of more than 200 randomly selected young and old people, complaints were made in a number of cases about symptoms of dry eyes. An examination of the left eye in each case using a specular microscope revealed a characteristic appearance of the lipid layer of the precorneal tear film with dry eyes. The lipid layer looked jagged, like broken ice, or cloudy, spotty, or stripped. It had a gray color. The interference patterns were documented with photographs. In addition to the Schirmer test and the breakup time test, specular microscopy is a simple and fast process for the recognition of dry eye.