Study of quality of life in patients treated with autologous serum eye drops.

Dry eye syndrome is a multifactorial disease with a complex pathophysiology. The associated morbidity is a worldwide public health problem. The development of autologous serum-based eye drops is an interesting treatment but presents some constraints. This is a retrospective, observational, single-center study of 43 patients (73 eyes) treated with autologous serum-based eye drops for dry eye syndrome at the University Hospital of Caen between 2014 and 2023. The patients' subjective symptoms, as well as the various modalities of evaluation of their daily quality of life were collected using questionnaires inspired by the OSDI questionnaire. The other elements used in this study were reported from the patients' medical files. We observed a mean improvement in quality of life of 44% in the treated subjects. Quality of life correlates with the improvement in the subject's quality of life score and overall health (P<0.01) but, nevertheless, depends on the severity of the initial clinical damage and the presence or absence of a corneal ulcer (P=0.013). We also found a reduction in the number of daily drops (65.4%) and an improvement in daily activities (85.1%). This study's results are consistent with previous work reporting the efficacy of autologous serum on the quality of life of treated patients. Consideration of the patient as a whole, integrating quality of life assessment with clinical examination, is essential when dealing with dry eye and its innovative therapeutics.