Adverse event rates similar in children vs. adults wearing soft contact lenses
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Soft contact lens wear resulted in similar rates of microbial keratitis and other inflammatory adverse events in children first fit between ages 8 and 12 years compared with adults.
“There is increasing interest in children wearing contact lenses,” Robin L. Chalmers, OD, FAAO, clinical trial consultant from Atlanta, said during her virtual ARVO presentation. “This is important because there will be many more young children fit with lenses for the purpose of myopia control.”
To analyze the safety of soft contact lens wear in children and young teens, Chalmers and colleagues performed a retrospective chart review of 963 children 8 to 17 years old. The children were first fit with soft contact lenses by age 12 years, and most received their first fit at age 11 years. The average observed duration of wear was 2.8 years per child.
The review focused on adverse events including microbial keratitis (MK), contact lens peripheral ulcers (CLPU), contact lens acute red eye (CLARE), infiltrative keratitis (IK), contact lens papillary conjunctivitis (CLPC) and other minor events.
Chalmers and colleagues found 122 potential ocular adverse events among 118 children. The annualized rates were 0.66% per year for inflammatory events (CLPU, CLARE and IK) and 0.48% per year for CLPC.
The researched adjudicated two presumed or probable cases of MK, which yielded an estimated incidence rate of 7.4 per 10,000 years of wear (95% CI, 1.8-29.6). For one case, the boy reported occasional noncompliant behavior of sleeping in the lenses.
“The [Retrospective Cohort Study of Safety (ReCSS)] study was designed to be of sufficient size to estimate the MK rate in soft contact lens wearers aged between 8 to 17 years and fit between 8 and 12 years,” Chalmers said. “The [7.4 per 10,000] rate is comparable to established rates in adults wearing soft contact lenses daily, and the rate of other inflammatory adverse events was similarly low.”
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Chalmers RL, et al. Estimate of adverse event rates in a retrospective cohort study of safety of pediatric soft contact lens wear: the ReCSS Study. Presented at: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting; May 6, 2020 (virtual meeting).
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