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Study associates contact lens solution toxicity with corneal infiltrative event risk
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Daily-wear soft contact lens users who experience contact lens solution toxicity are more likely to also experience corneal infiltrative events, a review of studies found.
Nicole Carnt, BOptom, and colleagues reviewed nonrandomized, interventional clinical trials involving patients who wore commercially available soft contact lenses bilaterally and who disinfected their lenses overnight for 3 months. All patients also began using a new pair of lenses each month, according to the study.
The researchers found that 77 of 609 subjects exhibited toxic staining, defined as diffuse punctate staining by sodium fluorescein in at least four of five corneal areas. In addition, corneal infiltrative events were three-times more likely in eyes that exhibited solution toxicity, the authors reported.
Of eyes with a predisposition to toxic staining, 6.7% experienced a corneal infiltrative event compared with 2.3% of eyes that did not show solution toxicity, according to the study.
"The rate of [corneal infiltrative events] increased as the rate of toxic staining increased for specific lens type-solution combinations, and peroxide-based solutions consistently resulted in the lowest rates of toxic staining and corneal inflammation," the authors said.
All corneal infiltrative events were mild, they noted.
The study is published in the April issue of Optometry and Vision Science.