Enhancing comfort with a lubricating daily disposable

Joachim Nick, Lynn Winterton and John Lally introduce a new development for a well known product, CIBA Vision's Focus Dailies with AquaRelease

Comfort is vital when it comes to patient satisfaction with their contact lenses, and yet reports from around the globe indicate that dryness and discomfort remain a significant problem for contact lens wearers, who too often decide to reduce or discontinue contact lens wear.^1-3 With approximately 2.1 million dropouts in the UK⁴ and 10-16 million in US,⁵ contact lens dropouts remain a significant challenge for the contact lens industry.

Daily disposable lenses were introduced as a logical extension of frequent replacement lenses in an attempt to minimise this high dropout rate. By replacing lenses more frequently, patients avoid problems associated with the deposition of protein,^6,7 lipid⁸ and mucin⁹ from the tear film, including complications such as reduced visual acuity,10  lens comfort^3,11 and wettability,¹² and increased inflammatory complications such as papillary conjunctivitis¹³ and acute red eye.¹⁴

Though both frequent replacement and daily disposable lenses are associated with reduced clinical problems, increased subjective performance and fewer unscheduled visits,^12,15-18 daily disposables require no cleaning regimen, thus significantly reducing or even eliminating the problem of patient non-compliance and lowering the rate of complications even more effectively. ^19-21

Single-use daily disposables are also popular with patients, who report better subjective comfort and vision, longer wearing times and increased convenience compared with other types of lenses.^22-27

Despite these benefits, however, patients continue to report dryness and discomfort with their daily disposable lenses.