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Mucin balls associated with decreased incidence of corneal infiltrative events
Cornea. 2011;30(5):535-542.
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The presence of mucin balls during continuous wear with lotrafilcon A silicone hydrogel contact lenses may lead to a decreased incidence of corneal infiltrative events, a study found.
The Longitudinal Analysis of Silicone Hydrogel Contact Lens Study evaluated 205 subjects who wore Night & Day silicone hydrogel lenses (lotrafilcon A, Ciba Vision) for 12 months. Researchers used fluorescein pooling of the corneal surface to grade mucin balls.
Of the subjects, 54.2% had mucin balls during at least one visit, and 32.8% of the subjects had repeated episodes. Mucin ball scores correlated weakly with corneal curvature (P = .005), the study said.
According to univariate analyses, the relative hazard for a corneal infiltrative event was 0.35 in subjects with a single episode of mucin balls. The relative hazard decreased to 0.17 if more than one episode was detected.
In addition, multivariate analyses found that the hazard of developing a corneal infiltrative event decreased by 84% with the repeated presence of mucin balls.
"We hypothesize that the mucin ball presence represents a more concentrated or viscous mucus layer, which prevents upregulation of the immune response against bacterial ligands," the authors said.