Abstract
Purpose:
To determine and compare subjective responses and corneal infiltrative events (CIE) between daily disposable soft contact lens (DDSCL) wearers, spectacle wearers (SW) and non-contact lens wearing emmetropes (NCLW).
Methods:
Data from 5 studies (n=201) comprising 5 different DDSCLs (delefilcon A, narafilcon A , omafilcon A , nefilcon A and filcon II 3), 1 study involving 59 SW and 1 study involving 40 NCLW were analyzed for subjective responses and CIE rates. All 7 groups were matched for age and gender and followed using the same protocol for 3 months. Subjective responses were compared between DDSCL, SW and NCLW using a linear mixed model. CIE incidences reported as a percentage of patients were compared using chi-square test.
Results:
Ocular comfort at the beginning of the day, during the day and end of day was significantly lower for the SW (7.5 [95% CI 7.1-7.8], 7.9 [95% CI 7.6-8.2] and 6.6 [95% CI 6.2-7.1], respectively) when compared to DDSCL (8.3 [95% CI 8.1-8.5], p < 0.001, 8.4 [95% CI 8.2-8.6], p= 0.010 and 7.3 [95% CI 7.0.-7.5], p= 0.032 respectively) and NCLW (8.7 [95% CI 8.3-9.1], p< 0.001, 9.0 [95% CI 8.6-9.3], p< 0.001 and 8.1 [95% CI 7.6-8.6], p< 0.001 respectively). During the day and end of day comfort, and end of day dryness scores were significantly better for NCLW compared to DDSCL (p= 0.019, p= 0.006 and p= 0.002 respectively). Ocular dryness at the end of the day scores were similar between SW and DDSCL (p= 1.000). Diurnal decrease in ocular comfort was highest for DDCL, but did not reach statistical significance when compared to the other groups (p= 0.07). Significant CIE occurred only in the DDSCL (1.5%, p= 0.471). The incidence of non-significant CIE was 3.3% for SW, 3.5% for DDSCL and 0% for NCLW (p= 0.490).
Conclusions:
DDSCL wearers rated their ocular comfort scores higher than SW, however the amount of change in comfort during the day was not different between modalities. SW might use a different criteria to rate ocular comfort than contact lens wearers that could result in the observed differences. Similar rates of non-significant CIE were found for DDSCL and SW.
Keywords: 477 contact lens