At this year’s meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, researchers presented findings that will change the way eye care clinicians manage patients.

By using data from the RESTORE study, researchers found that signs and symptoms aren’t necessarily equivalent when it comes to dry eye evaluation.6246/D874 Within the study cohort, OSDI scores and Schirmer test scores only agreed 28% of the time. Also, practitioners must be careful not to under- or over-estimate reports of patients’ symptoms—agreement between the patient’s and practitioner’s reports of symptoms averaged only 27.6%. Bottom line: Make sure that you understand precisely what your patient is telling you during the history, and document it appropriately.

Patient compliance and adherence to a lens care regimen is still a concern, report researchers in Dallas.1514/D805 Over three months, nearly 87% of patients in the study perceived themselves as compliant, and 80% reported awareness of risk factors—but, 14.2% admitted sleeping in lenses, 29% reported overwearing lenses, 24.1% admitted less frequent lens replacement, 27.8% reported swimming in their lenses and nearly 10% admitted to topping off their lens solution at least occasionally.

To read more of the abstracts of this year’s ARVO papers, posters and presentations, go to www.arvo.org. Be sure to read Dr. Joe Shovlin’s editorial, “ARVO Explores Nanotechnology,” and don’t miss Review of Optometry’s 11th Annual ARVO Report.