Contact lenses that not only correct but also treat refractive error could open up a new therapeutic role for eye care practitioners, delegates at the British Contact Lens Association's annual Clinical Conference heard last weekend.
Professor Brien Holden of the Brien Holden Institute and Vision CRC in Sydney, Australia said that anti-myopia products, targeting both child and adult-onset myopia, would slow the progression of myopia and reduce the number of people with high myopia and related eye disease.
His colleague Dr Padmaja Sankaridurg described studies with spectacle and contact lenses designed to change the growth of the eye by optically manipulating the peripheral retinal image.
One of three spectacle lens designs trialled reduced the rate of myopic progression by 30 per cent over one year in children aged 6-12 years, where the child had a history of parental myopia. An anti-myopia silicone hydrogel contact lens slowed myopic progression by 34 per cent over one year in children aged 7-14 years when compared to standard spectacle lenses and the reduction was 49 per cent when one or more parent was myopic.
In March, Vision CRC announced that these technologies had been licensed to Carl Zeiss and CIBA Vision respectively (News, 09.04.10). The MyoVision spectacle lens has since been launched in Asia.
Dr John Phillips of the University of Auckland, New Zealand described a dual-focus soft lens with a central correction zone and concentric treatment zones. The lens reduced myopic progression by 37 per cent over 10 months in children aged 11-14 years compared with a standard contact lens. Half of those wearing the lens had their myopia progression slowed by 50 per cent or more, but the effect might be up to 80 per cent in future if combined with medication.
CooperVision is currently marketing the lens, MiSight, in Hong Kong on a trial basis. The lens is reported to be a daily disposable made of the Proclear material.
CIBA Vision's Dr Rick Weisbarth stressed the need for a treatment plan over time, as in orthodontics, and for practitioners to gear their practices towards younger patients.
? A full report of the BCLA conference will appear in a forthcoming Contact Lens Monthly issue of Optician.