Abstract
Purpose :
Mid-day fogging is a common complaint from scleral lens (SL) wearers. We compare self-reported patient fogging to measured fluid reservoir (FR) thickness and central FR optical density after at least 2 hours of continuous wear in established SL patients.
Methods :
22 eyes of 14 patients that had worn SLs for 17 ± 9 months (mean ± SD; range 6 – 33 months) were included in this study. Indication for SL wear was ocular surface disease in 12 eyes and corneal irregularity in 10 eyes. Patients were 53 ± 16 years of age (range: 24-76 years); 8 patients were male. Mean wear time before measurements was 3.6 ± 2 hours (range: 2 – 9 hours). Schleimpflug images were collected by Pentacam (Oculus, Inc). The Pentacam caliper program was used to manually measure central clearance from the 90-degree image. Mid-FR densitometry was recorded from the same image. 7 patients (11 eyes) self-reported fogging, 6 patients (9 eyes) did not. Comparisons were made by t-test.
Results :
Average central FR clearance for all eyes (n=22) was 276 ± 115 µm (mean ± SD; range 114 – 560 µm) and average FR densitometry was 6.3 ± 2.4% (range 4.3 – 13.5%). Average FR clearance was not statistically different between foggers 286 ± 124 µm (range 114 -520 µm, n=11) and non-foggers (256 ± 111 µm, range 144 - 560 µm, n=9; P=0.6). FR densitometry was also not statistically different between foggers (8.0 ± 2.7%, range 5.3 to 13.5%) and non-foggers (5.0 ± 0.7%, range 4.3 – 6.7%; P=0.2). When FR clearance was plotted against FR densitometry, no correlation was present for: all eyes (R2 = 0.0003), foggers (R2 = 0.0021) and non-foggers (R2 = 0.008).
Conclusions :
No statistical differences in central fluid reservoir clearance or measured fluid reservoir densitometry were found between self-reported foggers or non-foggers wearing scleral lenses. Self-reported scleral lens mid-day fogging is not attributed to central scleral lens fluid reservoir clearance.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.