Update on Dry Eye Disease Treatment: Evidence From Randomized Controlled Trials

Abstract: Although the ultimate goal of dry eye disease (DED) management is to restore the ocular surface and tear film homeostasis and address any accompanying symptoms, addressing this is not an easy task. Despite the wide range of current treatment modalities targeting multiple aspects of DED, the available DED management literature is quite heterogeneous, rendering evaluation or comparison of treatment outcomes hard or almost impossible. There is still a shortage of well-designed, large-scale, nonsponsored, randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating long-term safety and efficacy of many targeted therapies individually or used in combination, in the treatment of identified subgroups of patients with DED. This review focuses on the treatment modalities in DED management and aims to reveal the current evidence available as deduced from the outcomes of RCTs.