Ulcerative risk is on the rise

Ulcerative keratitis may be twice as common in the US as previously thought, as a result of the recent rise in contact lens use, according to a recent study reported in Archives of Ophthalmology (August 2010).

Researchers found that contact lens wearers were about nine times more likely to develop the eye condition compared to non-wearers, in a study of over a million patients treated in northern California. Researcher Dr David Gritz of Montefiore Medical Centre in New York told Reuters Health that: 'As new contact lens innovations become available, and people hear that they can wear these contact lenses for weeks or a month without taking them off, they do just that. They don't realise the dramatic increase in risk it causes them.'