Diagnostic Value Of Lacrimal Testing In Patients With Epiphora

Many patients admitting to ophthalmology outpatient clinics are suffering from watering eye. Watering eye may be due to hypersecretion but it may also be due to epiphora resulting from lacrimal drainage system obstruction or in adequate drainage. In patients with epiphora many tests has been developed to reach the diagnosis. When compared with the others, each tests has preferable and unpreferable aspects. We evaluated 100 eyes of 50 patients complaining from watering eye. In these patients we studied the sensitivity and specificity of the initial diagnostic tests in determining the site of blockage in the lacrimal drainage system. All patients underwent taste test, flourescein dye disappearance test, primary and secondary Jones test, lacrimal irrigation, canalicular probing, conventional dacryocystography and nuclear dacryoscintigraphy. Among the 100 eyes, 40 of them (%40) has abnormal lacrimal drainage system and 60 of them (%60) has abnormal lacrimal drainage system. Taste test, flourescein dye disappearance test and nuclear dacryscintigraphy were found to have high sensitivity and specificity value. However, the kappa agreement of taste test was lower than the flourescein dye disappearance test and nuclear dacryoscintigraphy (kappa