Morphological Changes of Meibomian Gland in Anopthalmic Patients Wearing PMMA Prosthetic Eyes

Background: Chronic ocular discomfort represents one of the most common adverse events referred to patients with long-standing ocular prosthesis wearing. Aim and Objectives: The current work aimed to evaluate the morphological changes of meibomian gland in unilateral anophthalmic patients wearing PMMA prosthetic eyes in relation to contralateral normal eye. Subjects and Methods: This work has been performed upon 40 eyes of patients with anopthalmic socket wearing PMMA prosthetic eye completed a questionnaire designed to identify MGD-related ocular symptoms. Both eyelids of each patient underwent slit lamp examination, meibography imaging, and microbilogical assessment. Intra-individual comparison of main outcome measures between the eyelids of a prosthetic eye and paired normal eyelids was performed using Wilcoxon signed-rank test. A linear mixed model was employed to evaluate the relationship between ocular symptoms and meibomian gland/tear characteristics. Results: The eyelids with an ocular prosthesis exhibited significantly higher scores for ocular symptoms, lid margin abnormality, meibomian gland expression, and meibography compared to the normal eyelids (p