Abstract
Purpose :
Patients may be fit with scleral lenses (SLs) for indications such as ocular surface disease or irregular corneal astigmatism. Patients wearing SLs often report improved vision and comfort, but some experience mid-day fogging, which may require removal and reapplication of their SLs due to blurry or hazy vision.
The purpose of the present study was to document high contrast visual acuity pre- and post-scleral lens removal in patients with (foggers) and without (non-foggers) subjective mid-day fogging.
Methods :
Scleral lens wearers who had worn SLs for a minimum of six months were recruited from five clinical sites. Subjects who wore SLs for at least 2 hours prior to follow-up examinations were asked to participate. Informed consent was obtained, and the following information was collected: patient demographics, subjective complaint of mid-day fogging, and high contrast Freiburg Visual Acuity and Contrast Test (FrACT) pre- and post- scleral lens removal. Descriptive statistics are reported, and comparisons were made by t-test.
Results :
Thirty established scleral lens wearers (53 eyes) participated in this study with a mean age of 46 ± 14.6 years (range 24-76 years). Subjects reported a mean SL wear time of 12.5 + 3.2 hours per day (range: 5-17 hours) and 6.5 + 0.8 days per week (range: 4-7 days). 57% (17/30) of subjects reported mid-day fogging.
Mean FrACT acuity in foggers was 0.23 + 0.3 logMAR (range: -0.09-0.94 logMAR, n=13) for right eyes and 0.08 + 0.2 (range: -0.23-0.32 logMAR, n=12) for left eyes. There was no statistically significant difference in FrACT acuity pre- or post-scleral lens removal in foggers for the right (p=0.5) or left (p=0.3) eyes. There was a barely significant difference in FrACT acuity between foggers and non-foggers in the right eye (p=0.05) but not in the left (p=0.3) eye with over two hours of lens wear.
Conclusions :
Over half of the subjects in this study reported mid-day fogging but there was no difference in high contrast visual acuity pre-and post-scleral lens wear and minimal to no difference between foggers and non-foggers. Further analysis may provide more insight into the correlation between the subjective complaint of mid-day fogging and clinician observed findings.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.