Perfluorohexyloctane - A Promising Newcomer in Medical Science: A Systematic Review

INTRODUCTION: The new preservative-free treatment for dry eye patients, perfluorohexyloctane, has been considered in recent studies. This study aimed to assess the feasibility of perfluorohexyloctane for dry eye treatment. METHODS: This review was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines. We performed a comprehensive literature search across five online databases: PubMed, Cochrane, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar. Human studies using perfluorohexyloctane as dry eye or dry eye disease (DED) therapy published in English, and full-text journals available were inclusion criteria in this review. We identified corneal fluorescein staining (CFS) as the main outcome measurement. RESULTS: Five RCTs and two cohort studies were analyzed. Most studies were conducted in Western countries, except one RCT in China. One hundred percent perfluorohexyloctane was used in all studies. All studies showed improvement in CFS to the control group, with a significance level of p ≤ 0.001, except for one study where p = 0.2786. CONCLUSION: Perfluorohexyloctane shows promising potential as a new therapeutic approach for patients with dry eye disease, but additional research is needed, especially in Eastern countries.