Objective: To investigate the effect of pranoprofen on the expression of CXC chemokine receptor 3(CXCR3) and CC chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) of Th1 cells in dry eye patients, and to explore thecorrelation of changes in receptor expression with clinical changes of dry eye signs. Methods: This study
included 170 patients with dry eye in a randomized, controlled clinical trial. The right eyes of the patients (n=85) administered 0.1% pranoprofen and 0.1% sodium hyaluronate drops (4 times/day). The right eyes of the control dry eye patients (n=85) received 0.1% sodium hyaluronate drops alone (4 times/day). The two groups were followed up before administration and 30 days later. The primary clinical indexes thatwere evaluated included Schirmer I test (SIt), tear film break-up time (BUT), and corneal fluorescein staining (CFS). Differences in the expression of CXCR3 and CCR5 were compared between the two groups. Changes in the expression levels of CXCR3 and CCR5 were correlated with changes in SIt, BUT, and FIS. The data were analyzed by t test and pearson correlation. Results: The tear BUT was significantly longer in both groups after treatment compared to the pretreatment values (t=-13.27, -13.53, both P <0.05). Additionally, the tear BUT was significantly longer in the pranoprofen-treated test group compared to the control group (t=10.11, P <0.05). The CFS scores in both groups were lower than before treatment (t=7.34, 5.27, both P <0.05), and it was significantly lower in the test group compared with the control group (t=5.15,P<0.05). Expression levels of both CXCR3 and CCR5 were significantly reduced in the test group than pretreatment (t=6.74, 9.27, both P <0.05), and it was significantly lower in the test group, compared with the pretreatment values (t=3.29, 2.83, both P <0.05). The expression levels of both CXCR3 and CCR5 were negatively correlated with BUT (r=-0.22, -0.22, both P <0.05) and positively correlated with CFS (r=0.28,0.23, both P <0.05).Conclusion: Pranoprofen inhibits the inflammatory immune response in dry eye bydown-regulating the expression of the chemokine receptors CXCR3 and CCR5 on Th1 cells.