Trends in Diagnosed Dry Eye Disease Incidence, 2001 to 2015: A Nationwide Population-Based Study in Taiwan

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to estimate the longitudinal trend in the incidence of diagnosed dry eye disease (DED) from 2001 to 2015 in Taiwan. METHODS: We obtained data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database that covers 99.9% of Taiwanese residents. The incident DED cases were identified according to diagnoses, drug codes, and procedure codes. We estimated age-specific and sex-specific incidence rates (IRs) between 2001 and 2015. RESULTS: The annual age-adjusted IRs of DED increased from 0.97 per 1000 in 2001 to 2.52 per 1000 in 2015 among male population and from 2.06 in 2001 per 1000 to 4.91 in 2015 per 1000 among female population. From 2001 to 2015, the annual IRs increased starting from age 20 to 39 years to age 70 to 79 years in both the male and female population. The men in both 20 to 39 and 50 to 59 age groups showed 3-fold higher IRs in 2015 than in 2001. However, the IRs were consistently lower in men than in women from 2001 to 2015. Overall, the IR was highest, between 10.3 (95% confidence interval, 10.1-10.5) and 13.8 (13.5-14.1) per 1000 population, in the population with the highest socioeconomic status. CONCLUSIONS: The IRs of DED increased from 2001 to 2015 for all demographics, particularly in the 20 to 39 and 50 to 59 years aged male population. These findings highlight the disease burden of DED and are expected to grow substantially.