Reply to Comment on: A Prospective, Randomized Trial of Povidone-Iodine 0.6% and Dexamethasone 0.1% Ophthalmic Suspension for Acute Bacterial Conjunctivitis

• Published in: American journal of ophthalmology 2020-10, Vol.218, p.354-354
• Main Authors: Ta, Christopher N., Raizman, Michael B., Gross, Robert D., Joshi, Sunir, Mallick, Sushanta, Wang, Yuemei, Segal, Bruce
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Iodine
• ISSN: 0002-9394; 1879-1891
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ajo.2020.06.006

In this letter, we respond to comments presented by Drs. Kanclerz and Myers in their correspondence to the Editor regarding our article.1 We conducted a randomized, prospective, double-masked, multicenter, phase III study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a topical ophthalmic suspension combination of povidone-iodine (PVP-I; 0.6%) and dexamethasone (DEX; 0.1%) for infectious and inflammatory components of bacterial conjunctivitis. Drs. Kanclerz and Myers suggested that more frequent dosing may be necessary, and referred to their recent review, which found that evidence on PVP-I treatment of bacterial conjunctivitis in adults is scarce.2 We agree that more frequent dosing may be beneficial, but would like to note that patient compliance beyond 4 times daily dosing may be challenging, particularly because current Food and Drug Administration−approved antibiotic dosing is 3 times a day. The usefulness of adding a steroid is described in the Introduction section of our paper, where we highlight how topical steroids have demonstrated usefulness in reducing the adverse effects of inflammation in the treatment of infections of the anterior segment of the eye.