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Corneal staining correlated with incomplete blinking
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Corneal fluorescein staining correlated positively with incomplete blinking in a study of contact lens wearers and healthy control subjects. The association was stronger in the contact lens wearers, the study authors said.
Michael J. Collins, PhD, and colleagues investigated the blinking patterns of soft contact lens wearers and healthy subjects to determine whether blinking characteristics were associated with corneal fluorescein staining.
The researchers used high-speed filming to capture the natural blinking patterns of 15 soft contact lens wearers and 11 healthy subjects. Custom software measured the vertical gap between the lids at the start and the end of the downward motion of the upper eyelid. Corneal fluorescein staining was quantified on a scale of 0 to 4 for each subject.
The lens-wearing and non-lens-wearing subjects showed a wide range of blink completion, with 22% of blinks incomplete in both groups. Lens wearers had a significant correlation between the mean closed palpebral aperture and the grade of corneal staining (P < .05). The correlation was not as strong for control subjects (P > .1).
The study is published in the December issue of Eye & Contact Lens: Science and Clinical Practice.