What is TearLab®?
Some dry eye patients have itchy eyes while others say their eyes feel gritty and irritated. Yet there’s one factor that all true dry eye cases have in common: osmolarity.
Osmolarity is a measurement of the salt content in your tears. This measurement is vital in managing and treating dry eyes. Osmolarity in tears is the key diagnostic factor in determining whether a patient has dry eye syndrome, and will accurately determine the cause of the dryness in almost all patients.
Frequent dry eye symptoms, such as eye itchiness or redness, may not be caused by dry eye syndrome at all, but by other conditions, such as conjunctivitis or blepharitis. Measuring the tear osmolarity using TearLab can help optometrists make a more accurate diagnosis and determine the underlying cause of the symptoms and whether these symptoms are due to another eye condition.
How Does TearLab Work?
The optometrist collects tears directly from the patient’s eyes with the Osmolarity Test Pen and applies them to the Osmolarity Test Card, which stores data on a polycarbonate microchip. The Osmolarity Reader instantly translates the data into an osmolarity measurement reading and displays the result.
Based on the osmolarity reading, the optometrist can determine the root cause of the patient’s dry eye symptoms and discuss the best treatment options.
The TearLab Osmolarity System is an accurate and easy-to-use test that provides quick results and efficient diagnoses.
