The tear turnover and tear clearance tests - a review

TL;DR

This review summarizes current methods for assessing tear turnover and clearance, highlighting recent advances in less invasive techniques that could improve clinical evaluation of ocular surface health.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of existing and emerging methodologies for tear dynamics measurement, emphasizing their implications for ocular surface health and potential clinical application.

Findings

Recent techniques are less invasive and simpler.

New methods have potential for clinical use.

Tear dynamics are crucial for ocular health.

Abstract

Introduction. The aim is to provide a summary of methods available for the assessment of tear turnover and tear clearance rates. The review defines tear clearance and tear turnover and describes their implication for ocular surface health. Additionally, it describes main types of techniques for measuring tear turnover, including fluorescein tear clearance tests, techniques utilizing electromagnetic spectrum and tracer molecule and novel experimental techniques utilizing optical coherence tomography and fluorescein profilometry. Areas covered. Internet databases (PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar) and most frequently cited references were used as a principal resource of information on tear turnover rate and tear clearance rate, presenting methodologies and equipment, as well as their definition and implications for the anterior eye surface health and function. Keywords used for data-search were as follows: tear turnover, tear clearance, fluorescein clearance, scintigraphy, fluorophotometry, tear flow, drainage, tear meniscus dynamics, Krehbiel flow and lacrimal functional unit. Expert Commentary. After decades, the topic of tear turnover assessment is reintroduced. Recently, new techniques have been developed to propose less invasive, less time consuming and simpler methodologies for the assessment of tear dynamics that have the potential to be utilized in a clinical practice. Keywords. Fluorescein clearance test, fluorophotometry, tear clearance, tear film dynamics, tear turnover, scintigraphy, optical coherence tomography.