Peripheral refraction and aberration profiles for single vision and multifocal contact lenses and the effect of accommodation

Abstract

Purpose: To compare peripheral refraction (PR) and higher order aberration profiles with single vision and different multifocal soft contact lenses over a range of accommodative demands.

Methods: Contact lenses evaluated: AirOptix Aqua® (AOA), AOA Multifocal High Add, PureVision® Multifocal High Add, Proclear Multifocal® - center near and distance designs; +2.50D Add. Forty experienced contact lens wearers, 68% female, refractive error between -1.00 and -4.00D, aged 21.4±2.0 years completed this trial. Refraction and aberration profiles across the horizontal visual field (-50° to +50°, 10° step) for accommodative demands of -1.00, +2.00, +3.00, +4.00 and +5.00D were measured after 8 days of lens wear using the EyeMapper, a custom-built scanning refractometer.

Results: For the unaccommodated state, AOA produced the flattest relative PR profile, while the multifocal lenses generally shifted the PR posteriorly (up to +3.00D, p<0.001) with the exception of the Proclear Distance lens, which showed a more negative relative PR profile (up to -2.00D, p<0.001). This pattern was essentially maintained across all the accommodative states, with only a slight negative shift of the PR for higher accommodative demands. Compared to AOA, the Proclear Distance design introduced more positive spherical aberration, while spherical aberration was more negative for all other multifocal lenses. Only minor differences in horizontal coma were measured. Higher order aberrations changed insignificantly with accommodation.

Conclusions: Relative PR is shifted forward by multifocal contact lenses of center distance design and vice versa. Accommodation has little effect on lower or higher order aberrations across the visual field and lens types.

Keywords: 477 contact lens • 404 accommodation • 676 refraction