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Study finds brief breaks improve total wearing time of scleral lenses
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Patients wearing scleral contact lenses who took short breaks every 4 to 5 hours of wearing time had a significantly higher success rate among all diagnosis groups evaluated, according to Ortenberg and colleagues in a study published in Eye & Contact Lens.
The researchers conducted a retrospective review of 105 eyes of patients with keratoconus, 28 eyes of patients with postpenetrating keratoplasty (PK) and 22 eyes with multiple diagnoses, including postradial keratotomy, keratoglobus, pellucid marginal degeneration, PK with aphakia and iatrogenic ectasia, according to the study.
The 97 patients were fitted with scleral contact lenses due to failure with other modalities such as intolerance, instability or unsatisfactory vision improvement, the authors said.
Patients were instructed to take a break from wear every 4 to 5 hours and to replenish the lens with unpreserved saline. Mean follow-up was 34.9 months, ranging from 2 to 71 months.
The authors reported that they saw a significant increase in best-corrected visual acuity compared with previous best-corrected visual acuity. They noted that the success rate in wearing time was significantly higher in the keratoconus group than the PK group. Twenty-seven percent of patients discontinued wear.
“We showed that scleral lenses can be used successfully for visual rehabilitation and management of a wide range of causative factors of corneal irregular astigmatism that have not responded to other treatment modalities,” the authors concluded.
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