Assessment of tear meniscus by optical coherence tomography in patients with canalicular laceration repair

Purpose To analyze tear meniscus measurements with optical coherence tomography (OCT) in patients with canalicular laceration repair. Methods Thirty-four consecutive patients who underwent unilateral canalicular repair due to canalicular laceration between January 2014 and December 2018 were included. All patients had canalicular repair followed by monocanalicular or annular silicone tube intubation. Anatomic patency of canalicular system was tested with probing and irrigation, while functional patency was evaluated with Munk score. Tear meniscus measurements of all patients were obtained following tube removal by spectral OCT. Tear meniscus height (TMH), tear meniscus depth (TMD) and tear meniscus area (TMA) of eyes with canalicular laceration repair and contralateral uninvolved eyes were compared. Results Average age of 34 patients was 32.8 ± 21.3 years (range 4–68 years). Lower canaliculus was involved in 27 (79.4%), upper canaliculus in five (14.7%), and both canaliculi in two (5.9%) patients. Mean follow-up period was 6.5 ± 5.7 months. Anatomic patency rate was 100%, and functional patency (patients free of epiphora) was 91.2%. Average TMH (317.9 ± 133.1 µm), TMD (198.1 ± 82.5 µm) and TMA (29,792.1 ± 21,285.3 μm 2 ) values of eyes with canalicular repair were not significantly different from TMH (308.9 ± 111.9 µm), TMD (184.5 ± 61.4 µm) and TMA (26,682.5 ± 16,178.1 μm 2 ) values of contralateral control eyes ( p values: 0.758, 0.225 and 0.778, respectively). There was a strong positive correlation between TMA and Munk score ( r = 0.637, p