#3-72E. Washing Away the Pollen: Evaluating Eyewash as an Adjunct Therapy for Allergic Conjunctivitis (Sci Rep, 2025)

Are conventional pharmacological treatments always sufficient to control severe ocular symptoms in hay fever patients? This episode explores a prospective cohort study that utilized a mobile application, AllerSearch, to evaluate the association between eye washing and allergic conjunctival symptoms among 476 participants in Japan. The findings revealed that patients who practiced eye washing reported significantly lower scores for eye itching, tearing, and total ocular symptoms compared to non-users, maintaining these milder symptoms longitudinally with a higher proportion of symptom-free days. The most critical clinical takeaway is that eye washing effectively mitigates allergic symptoms and improves the quality of life without exacerbating subjective dry eye disease symptoms, supporting the use of preservative-free solutions. However, when critically appraising this research, clinicians must consider potential selection bias, as the cohort consisted of smartphone application users who might possess higher health consciousness and adherence to preventive behaviors than the general population. For physicians, this paper is highly relevant; it provides robust evidence to confidently recommend preservative-free eye washing as a safe and effective supplementary self-care strategy for hay fever patients who struggle to achieve complete symptom resolution with standard medications alone.

Citation: NAGINO, Ken, et al. Association between eye washing and ocular symptoms of hay fever: a mobile app-based prospective cohort study in Japan. Scientific Reports. 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-93027-z

Disclaimer: This audio summary is based on personal interpretation and does not guarantee the exact content of the original paper. Please refer to the original article for details.