Table 5.
Comparison of baseline demographic, dry eye symptoms and signs between two subgroups of participants identified from latent profile analysis of baseline tear cytokines.
| Baseline characteristic | Subgroup 1 (n = 23 participants, 46 eyes) |
Subgroup 2 (n = 108 participants, 216 eyes) |
p-value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Person-level characteristics | |||
| Age (year): Mean (SD) | 54.2 (13.2) | 54.2 (14.3) | 0.99 |
| Gender: Female (%) | 19 (82.6%) | 86 (79.6%) | 0.74 |
| Race (%) | |||
| White | 14 (60.9%) | 63 (58.3%) | 0.41 |
| Black | 2 (8.7%) | 14 (13.0%) | |
| Asian | 3 (13.0%) | 5 (4.6%) | |
| Other | 4 (17.4%) | 26 (24.1%) | |
| Sjogren syndrome: Yes (%) | 3 (13.6%) | 5 (4.9%) | 0.13 |
| OSDI score: higher is worse, Mean (SD) | |||
| Total | 40.0 (17.21) | 42.4 (14.95) | 0.50 |
| Environmental triggers subscale | 50.0 (26.76) | 55.1 (27.07) | 0.42 |
| Ocular symptoms subscale | 38.8 (19.88) | 44.6 (18.20) | 0.17 |
| Vision-related function subscale | 35.6 (20.84) | 35.0 (19.86) | 0.91 |
| Dry eye signs: Mean (SD) | |||
| Conjunctival lissamine staining score,higher is worse | 3.38 (1.71) | 2.69 (1.29) | 0.04 |
| Corneal fluorescein staining score: higher is worse | 4.26 (2.33) | 3.03 (2.70) | 0.03 |
| Tear break-up time (sec), lower is worse | 3.01 (1.11) | 3.35 (1.65) | 0.14 |
| Schirmer test (mm), lower is worse | 8.20 (5.14) | 13.72 (8.89) | < 0.001 |
| Meibomian gland dysfunction, higher is worse | 1.97 (0.99) | 1.94 (1.03) | 0.87 |
| Tear osmolarity (mOsms/L), lower is worse | 296.95 (9.40) | 301.28 (16.70) | 0.06 |
| Composite dry eye severity score*: higher is worse | 0.62 (0.27) | 0.45 (0.27) | 0.002 |
Significant values are in [bold].
*The composite dry eye severity score, ranging from 0 to 1 was calculated from tear break-up time, anesthetized Schirmer’s test, corneal and conjunctival staining, and meibomian gland dysfunction.