Fingerprick Autologous Blood (FAB) in Severe Dry Eye Disease (DED)

Dry eye disease (DED) is an umbrella term encompassing a range of diseases estimated to affect 14% of all adults aged 48 to 91. If left untreated, DED can lead to severe reduction in the quality of life of the sufferer. It can also cause loss of vision, pain in response to light, painful recurring stabbing sensations, and the feeling of grit in the affected eye(s). No curative agents for DED exist. Available conventional treatment options for DED such as artificial tears often only alleviate symptoms, have limited effectiveness, and in most cases patients may fail to respond; although the exact rate of treatment failure is unavailable in the published literature. Crudely, human tears with its vast constituents is essentially filtered blood and as such is an obvious source for a "tear mimic" containing the substances of tears. Blood, and several blood derived products, including autologous serum, have been studied as tear substitute candidates. This study proposes to test the use of finger prick autologous blood (FAB) technique in which whole blood is applied to the eye from a cleaned finger.