To analyse the occurrence and cost of dry eye disease in Spain in the recent years.
A cross-sectional analysis based on anonymised data from an insurance claims database that includes data from 1997 to 2015 from public and private hospitals and healthcare centres; 36,081 patients were eligible for the study after duplicate elimination. Five ICD9 codes associated with dry eye were used for patient selection, including vitamin A deficiency with xerophthalmic scars of cornea, xerophthalmia due to vitamin A deficiency, keratoconjunctivitis sicca not specified as Sjögren's, dry eye syndrome and keratoconjunctivitis sicca Sjögren's disease.
Over 88% of the patients were female, and the mean age was 66 years. Patients with keratoconjunctivitis sicca Sjögren's disease represented more than 89% of all patients and had the highest percentage of women. Both the annual number of patients and the number of admissions have increased exponentially since 1997 raising from 1079 to 3097 and from 1344 to 5938, respectively. The in-hospital length of stay was 9.6 (standard deviation = 11.6) days where more than 65% of the admissions were due to emergencies. Total costs were found to increase from €4.9 to €30.3 million during the study period; in parallel, there was an increase in the mean annual cost per patient, which was on average €7379.
Disease incidence is likely to increase due to the influence of modern-day workplace, and it is important to take into account the high economic burden and the large decrease in quality of life in regards to Spanish society and health policies.