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Custom-designed soft contact lenses can improve vision for patients with keratoconus and in the long-term offer hope of non-surgical treatment instead of corneal transplants, researchers from the University of Rochester claim.

They tested several designs of custom contact lenses on the patients participating in their research project. Keratoconus, which is rare, can be disabling and figures suggest that about one in 2,000 people suffer from the disease, usually in both eyes.

'The condition shows up in a relatively small population, but it causes huge optical problems,' explained Geunyoung Yoon, assistant professor in the Departments of Ophthalmology and Biomedical Engineering, the Centre for Visual Science, and the Institute of Optics.

'These people have problems so severe, they can't tolerate glasses. They can't take laser vision correction because they have a very thin cornea around the apex. The available treatment is to wear hard contact lenses or corneal transplant with a donored cornea if the disease is severe. And with the corneal transplant, there is a rejection rate.'

The researchers tested several designs of custom contact lenses for both high-contrast and low-contrast visual acuity. They compared vision with the custom-designed soft lenses to vision with conventional lenses and rigid gas-permeable lenses. Researchers claim that corrections with the custom lenses resulted in an average improvement of 2.1 lines in visual acuity, or from 20/48 to 20/29, over the use of the conventional defocus and astigmatism corrections alone.

The lenses were made in collaboration with Bausch & Lomb. All the patients participating in the project reported a significant improvement in vision.

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