title: [Tear osmolarity and dry eye].
abstract: Dry eye is a common eye disease, and its incidence rate has been escalating. The increased tear osmolarity is one of the main reasons for complaint, damage and inflammation of dry eye patients. With the breakthrough of testing technology for tear osmolarity, more research and application of tear osmolarity was reported, and papers on tear osmolarity of normal eye and dry eye in different regions were also published. In this article, the progress of the tear osmolarity research, the range of tear osmolarity and its application in diagnosis and therapy of dry eye was introduced, and the prospect for the clinical application of hypotonic artificial tears was also discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, the First Hospital of Xi'an, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Shaanxi Institute of Ophthalmology, Xi'an 710002, China. panshiyin@163.com
authors.forename: Shi-yin
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.forename: Xiang-hua
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.forename: Yang-zheng
authors.initials: YZ
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Xian-ning
authors.initials: XN
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Xiu-ping
authors.initials: XP
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D015352:Dry Eye Syndromes; D006801:Humans; D009994:Osmolar Concentration; D013666:Tears / Q000502:physiology*