Effects of 3% trehalose as an adjuvant treatment after LASIK

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effect of 3% trehalose as an adjuvant in the standard treatment after laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis. DESIGN: Interventional prospective comparative single-blind study. SETTING: Department of Ophthalmology, Hospital Quirón Zaragoza, Spain. METHODS: A total of 26 eyes (13 patients) were included, of which 12 eyes (group 1) received conventional treatment with lubricant drops of hyaluronic acid (0.15%) and 14 eyes (group 2) received, additionally, an ophthalmic solution of 3% trehalose. Pre- and postoperative quality-of-life tests and vital stains, tear breakup time, and osmolarity measurements were made. RESULTS: We obtained statistically significant differences between the groups in the Symptom Assessment in Dry Eye test in all visits with respect to severity, and in the postoperative day 1 visit with respect to frequency, in all cases favoring the trehalose treatment. The values of osmolarity were not significantly different between groups. However, we did find significant differences in the Oxford scale in day 90 for the trehalose treatment (P<0.001), and in the National Eye Institute scale in day 30 (P=0.02). CONCLUSION: The results of this exploratory study indicate that the adjuvant treatment with 3% trehalose could be superior with respect to the standard treatment, with improvements in the objective and subjective parameters of tear quality.