Most clinically significant astigmatism corrected by toric soft contact lenses
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Key takeaways:
- Toric soft contact lens prescribing increased from 24.4% in 2000 to 46.2% in 2023.
- Men were more likely to be prescribed toric soft lenses compared with women (32% vs. 28.7%).
Toric soft contact lens prescribing almost doubled internationally from 2000 to 2023, with nearly all clinically significant astigmatism being corrected by these lenses, researchers wrote in Contact Lens & Anterior Eye.
“We were pleased to see that the contact lens industry has finally got to the point whereby all clinically meaningful astigmatism is being corrected in soft lens wearers,” Nathan Efron, AC, DSc, PhD, BScOptom, FAAO, professor emeritus at the School of Optometry and Vision Science at Queensland University of Technology, told Healio. “Prior to 2023, contact lens practitioners worldwide were underprescribing toric lenses for astigmatic patients.”
Since 1996, Efron and colleagues have conducted an annual survey of contact lens prescribing in more than 70 countries, with results through 2011 detailed in two previously published papers. In this review, they described findings from 2000 through 2023, which included trends from 20 countries with reliable data relating to 220,934 soft daily single-vision lens fits. The researchers further analyzed data from 13,582 fits from 2019 to 2023 to determine the proportion of recently prescribed toric soft lenses.
According to results, toric soft lens prescribing increased nearly twofold, from 24.4% of lens fits in 2000 to 46.2% in 2023 (P < .0001), with notable differences among countries in prescribing trends. Compared with the other 16 nations surveyed, Bulgaria, Japan, Lithuania and Taiwan had lower prescribing rates.
The researchers also reported significant differences in the mean age of toric soft lenses wearers compared with spherical soft lenses wearers (30.5 years vs. 27.9 years). In addition, men were more likely to be prescribed toric soft lenses, accounting for 32% of all standard soft daily wear single vision contact lens prescriptions, while women accounted for 28.7%.
When analyzing prescriptions from 2019 to 2023, replacement frequency based on material types varied among countries but, on average, was 51% for reusable silicone hydrogel, 27% for daily disposable silicone hydrogel, 21% for daily disposable hydrogel and 10% for reusable hydrogel.
When the “outlier countries” of Bulgaria, Japan, Lithuania and Taiwan are excluded, researchers calculated toric lens prescribing to be 53.7%, slightly exceeding the 51.4% threshold estimate set as the target value in previous research.
According to Efron and colleagues, several factors may have contributed to this expanding rate of prescribing, including improved manufacturing capabilities, greater confidence in the performance of these lenses in correcting astigmatism and an increase in the range of daily disposable toric lenses available over time, including cylinder axes and powers.
“Toric soft lenses are so well-designed and so easy to fit these days that all astigmatism 0.75 D and higher should be corrected as a matter of routine,” Efron told Healio.
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Efron N, et al. Cont Lens Anterior Eye. 2024;doi:10.1016/j.clae.2024.102276.
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