The Dry Eye a Practical Approach by
Prof. Sudi Patel and Kenny Blades


This slim volume of 88 pages is hard to put down. It aims to provide the practitioner with up to date information on the tear film and its problems. It is entirely adequate and I find it good to refer too. There are deficiencies - the biggest is an in-depth review of the tear film in aging.

There is practical information on detecting and measuring the dry eye. As they points out - a dry eye is a subjective irritation which can be detected by Shirmers Test, Phenol Threads and stain dyes like florescen and Rose Bengal. It is curious to note that tests for dry eye go in Ten's. Dry eye is a TBUT of 10 seconds, they hints at a ten millimeter Shirmer after 5 minutes is dry etc. (they says that 5mm to sharp a cut off). To these tests can be added the suck-it-and-see approach of advising comfort eye drops to see if they work. The empirical approach can work well, when one considers that no one test is definitive.

One does wish they had included more information on contact lenses and dry eyes and also the relationship between dry eye and corneal infections. I wished the chapter on ocular comfort drops and food supplement help was expanded. They does explain how vitamins A,C,E and selenium can reduce discomfort.

It is a fascinating book with many pictures in colour, well written. Cost is £29 in the uk = Palfi