Demodex is a mite commonly found in eyelash hair follicles and sebaceous glands of healthy people. Due to the fact this mite has also been reported in many chronic cases of blepharitis, we aimed to investigate the incidence of infestation with this mite in healthy people and in patients with chronic blepharitis, in addition to evaluating the response to the different treatments used for blepharitis. 105 subjects without blepharitis were selected as a control group and 20 subjects diagnosed as having chronic blepharitis were selected as patients. Epilated eyelashes were observed under microscope in both groups of patients. Those with overpopulation of mites were treated with ether lid and eyelash scrubs and 2% mercury oxide ointment. The incidence of Demodex infestation in the control group was 0.08 mites per eyelash, whereas in the patients with chronic blepharitis the incidence was 0.69 mites per eyelash; this difference was statistically significant (p=0.006). All the mites found were Demodex folliculorum except in one patient where the mite was identified as Demodex brevis. After 3-8 weeks of specific treatment the number of mites per eyelash decreased dramatically (0.03, with p=0.001). Two patients were intolerant of the therapy. In this study the incidence of Demodex in patients with blepharitis was very high, when compared with normal subjects, showing a clear association between blepharitis and Demodex infestation. Treatment with mercury oxide ointment was satisfactory in controlling the infection, despite difficulty in its application and occasional toxicity.

The VEMoS-AXL system is a new optical biometer based on spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) that has been tested in terms of intrasession repeatability and compared with a swept-source optical coherence tomography biometer (SS-OCT), which is recognized as the gold standard for the performance of an agreement analysis. A biometric analysis was performed three consecutive times in 120 healthy eyes of 120 patients aged between 18 and 40 years with the SD-OCT system, and afterwards, a single measurement was obtained with the SS-OCT system. Within-subject standard deviations were 0.004 mm, 4.394 µm, and 0.017 mm for axial length (AL), central corneal thickness (CCT), and anterior chamber depth (ACD) measures obtained with the SD-OCT biometer, respectively. The agreement between devices was good for AL (limits of agreement, LoA: −0.04 to 0.03 mm) and CCT (LoA: −4.36 to 14.38 µm), whereas differences between devices were clinically relevant for ACD (LoA: 0.03 to 0.21 mm). In conclusion, the VEMoS-AXL system provides consistent measures of anatomical parameters, being most of them interchangeable with those provided by the SS-OCT-based gold standard.

The VEMoS AXL system is a new optical biometer based on spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) that has been tested in terms of intrasession repeatability and compared with a swept-source optical coherence tomography biometer (SS-OCT), which is considered the gold standard, for an agreement analysis. A biometric analysis was performed three consecutive times in 120 healthy eyes of 120 patients aged between 18 and 40 years with the SD-OCT system and afterwards a single measurement was obtained with the SS-OCT system. Within-subject standard deviations were 0.004 mm, 4.394 µm and 0.017 mm for axial length (AL), central corneal thickness (CCT), and anterior chamber depth (ACD) measures obtained with the SD-OCT biometer, re-spectively. The agreement between devices was good for AL (Limits of agreement, LoA: -0.04 to 0.03 mm) and CCT (LoA: -4.36 to 14.38 µm), whereas differences between devices were clinically relevant for ACD (LoA: 0.03 to 0.21 mm). In conclusion, the VEMoS AXL system provides consistent measures of anatomical parameters, being most of them interchangeable with those provided by the SS-OCT-based gold standard.