www.ijbcp.com International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology | June 2019 | Vol 8 | Issue 6 Page 1297 IJBCP International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology Print ISSN: 2319-2003 | Online ISSN: 2279-0780 Original Research Article A prospective study to compare the efficacy of tacrolimus vs cyclosporine in vernal keratoconjunctivitis in children in India Priya Choudhary 1 *, Satya Prakash Singh 2 , Rakesh Chandra Chaurasia 3 , Meenakshi Jindal 4 INTRODUCTION Vernal keratoconjunctivitis (VKC) is a chronic condition that affects children and young adults. This condition appears before 10 years of age and lasts for 2 to 10 years, with spontaneous recovery during puberty. The diagnosis is essentially clinical. Symptoms include intense itching, tearing, mucous secretion and photophobia and conjuctival signs include hyperaemia, papillae and Horner Tantra’s dot. 1,2 VKC is characterised by conjunctival in filterations ABSTRACT Background: Vernal keratoconjunctivitis (VKC) is a chronic allergic conjunctival disease. Immunomodulatory drugs like cyclosporine is being used for its treatment. Tacrolimus is another immunomodulator drug that can be used in VKC. This study was done to compare the efficacy of tacrolimus and cyclosporine in VKC. Methods: This prospective study was conducted on 60 patients of either sex by dividing them into two groups. The first group was treated with cyclosporine (0.05%) ophthalmic eye drop and second group with tacrolimus (0.03%) ophthalmic ointment. Total five objective signs (hyperaemia, oedema, papillae, corneal involvement and tantra’s dot) and five subjective symptoms (itching, tearing, foreign body sensation, discharge and photophobia) data was collected and tabulated for statistical analysis. Results: Authors found TSSS in both groups decrease significantly (p <0.05 or p <0.01 or p <0.001) at all post periods as compared to respective predecessor periods except 4 weeks to 6 weeks in cyclosporine group and 6 weeks to 8 weeks in tacrolimus group. Similarly, for each period, on comparing the mean TSSS between the groups TSSS between the groups at all periods does not differed statistically though at final evaluation (mean change from baseline to 8 weeks), it improved 5.2% more in tacrolimus group (83.7%) than cyclosporine group (78.5%). Similarly, TOSS also decreased at all post periods except 4 weeks to 6 weeks, and 6 weeks to 8 weeks in cyclosporine group and 6 weeks to 8 weeks in tacrolimus group. Improvement in scores was 11.6% more in tacrolimus (81.6%) than cyclosporine (70.0%). Cyclosporine eye drops are associated with burning sensation and redness of eyes while transient ocular irritation was only observed side effect with tacrolimus. Conclusions: The study found tacrolimus is clinically better drug for treatment of vernal keratoconjunctivitis than cyclosporine and is also cost effective. Keywords: Tacrolimus, Cyclosporine, Vernal keratoconjunctivitis, Immunomodulatory DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20192193 1 Department of Pharmacology, Muzaffarnagar Medical College Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India 2 Department of Ophthalmology, 3 Department of Pharmacology, Moti Lal Nehru Medical College, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India 4 Department of Pharmacology, Muzaffarnagar Medical College Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India Received: 22 March 2019 Revised: 05 April 2019 Accepted: 03 May 2019 *Correspondence to: Dr. Priya Choudhary, Email: choudharypp@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open- access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non- Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non- commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.