Effects of Serial Sessions of Activa Mask for the Treatment of Meibomian Gland Dysfunction
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: To analyze outcomes on objective ocular surface parameters and subjective symptoms of serial weekly sessions using the Activa mask in patients with meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD). METHODS: This is a prospective study including patients with symptomatic MGD who were treated with four weekly sessions using the Activa mask (SBM Sistemi, Turin, Italy). Noninvasive ocular surface examination was carried out before (T0) and 2 weeks after the last mask session (T1) using Idra (SBM Sistemi, Turin, Italy) for the measurement of: (1) noninvasive break-up time (NIBUT); (2) lipid layer thickness (LLT); (3) tear meniscus height (TMH); (4) meibomian gland loss (MGL) of upper and lower eyelids. The I-Pen tear osmolarity system (I-Med Pharma Inc, Dollard-des Ormeaux, Quebec, Canada) was used to measure tear osmolarity values. Ocular discomfort symptoms were ascertained by means of the ocular surface disease index (OSDI) questionnaire. RESULTS: All 25 patients (11 males, 14 females; mean age 57.1 ± 11.9 years) regularly completed the cycle of four mask sessions. No patients used prohibited medications, and no device-related adverse events were noted. At T1, mean values of NIBUT and LLT increased significantly compared to T0 (respectively from 6.0 ± 1.4 to 6.6 ± 1.2 s, P = 0.043, and from 53.2 ± 17.4 to 65.3 ± 16.3 nm, P < 0.001), while mean values of MGL and tear osmolarity decreased significantly (respectively from 17.1 ± 9.3 to 15.1 ± 8.0%, P = 0.014, and from 307.3 ± 12.2 to 301.5 ± 6.8 mOsm/l, P = 0.005). In parallel, OSDI score reduced significantly from 62.4 ± 11.7 at T0 to 34.5 ± 11.2 at T1 (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Weekly serial sessions using the Activa mask significantly improved objective parameters of the ocular surface as well as subjective ocular discomfort symptoms in patients with recalcitrant MGD. As a further benefit from the treatment, patients were able to avoid the use of concomitant medications, apart from tear substitutes, throughout the study.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".