Disposables are safer, says huge survey

Contact lens users are urged to be vigilant about caring for their lenses following results from the largest contact lens study ever held in Australia and New Zealand.

The study, conducted by the Vision CRC, the Institute for Eye Research and the Cornea and Contact Lens Research Unit of the University of New South Wales, found that disposable lens wearers had a lower risk of infection.

Associate Professor Fiona Stapleton, who directed the investigation, commented: 'For the first time, daily disposables (worn once and thrown away) were shown to have the lowest risk of infection, approximately 1 in 10,000.

'New users are particularly at risk of infection, as are people who buy lenses over the internet, highlighting that professional advice is very important to protect your sight,' she said.

The Australian and New Zealand Microbial Keratitis Study confirmed that contact lens-related corneal infections were rare, affecting approximately 5 in 10,000 wearers annually.

It claimed there were almost 700,000 lens wearers in Australia, and contact lenses provided many advantages over other methods of vision correction such as spectacles and refractive surgery. However, infections could have serious outcomes such as permanent vision loss and in severe cases, blindness. The study found that eight in every 100,000 wearers per year (50 people per year in Australia) experienced a reduction in vision.

The research also looked at the risks associated with different lens types. New highly oxygen-permeable lenses for extended wear had been thought to have a lower risk of infection, but early analysis indicated that overnight lens wear continued to increase the risk of infection by 4-7 times regardless of the lens material.

The study results were recently presented at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology in the US and are expected to be published next year.