Cornea Classic: Nichols, Nichols, and Mitchell, "The Lack of Association Between Signs and Symptoms in Patients With Dry Eye Disease" (2004)

Abstract

Like all important areas of vision research, the field of dry eye has matured in the past 20 years. At the time this paper, currently the sixth most cited paper ever published in Cornea , was written by current leaders in the field, Kelly Nichols and Jason Nichols, their results challenged much of the accepted dogma. In a relevant small sample of clinic-based patients diagnosed with dry eye, they established the absence of important correlations between the patients' reported symptoms and diagnostic signs of dry eye, summarizing dry eye as a symptom-based disease.

Keywords: Schirmer test; dry eye; fluorescein staining; meibomian gland assessment; phenol red thread; rose Bengal staining; tear break-up time.