The International Standards Organization (ISO) is considering whether to revise a contact lens solution standard following the Fusarium keratitis cases linked to ReNu with MoistureLoc.
A revision of ISO 14729 would centre on issues such as 'no rub and no rinse' solutions and the strains of Fusarium against which solutions should be tested.
An ISO committee confirmed the existing standard in April after a standard five-year review but had no chance to consider the ramifications of the US withdrawal of MoistureLoc which occurred a couple of days before, so it has set up a working group to review the standard.
The ISO told Optician: 'The task of the project group is not to revise the standard but to review it in the light of the Bausch & Lomb case. The group will report by February 2007 on whether the standard should be revised.'
Dr Simon Kilvington, a lecturer in microbiology and immunology at the University of Leicester, said some companies commissioning him to test solutions already seemed to be moving towards recommending a return to a rub and rinse regime for lenses before soaking.
Most practitioners would welcome an official rub and rinse recommendation, to optimise cleaning, said Christopher Kerr, clinical consultant to the Association of Contact Lens Manufacturers. He said: 'Common sense would suggest that that would be a good idea.'
He said that most of the data on which ISO 14729 was based was very old and that any revision of the standard might require costly reformulations of solutions.
Nick Atkins of consultancy Proven Track Record said that most of today's multipurpose solutions would not have to be changed because they contained a suitable disinfectant which would work with rub and rinse. He said that ISO 14729 did not require tests for all strains of the fungus Fusarium or for the infection Acanthamoeba, which he said produced far more cases of infected eyes in the 1990s.