Further to the coverage of No7 Contact Lenses launch of its Elements hybrid contact lens (Optician 23.06.17), I’d like to alleviate any concerns that this coverage might have given your readers following Katie Harrop’s assertion that there were ‘issues’ with ‘previous hybrid designs’.
I am sure Ms Harrop was referring to lenses no longer marketed, where lens design issues caused lens adherence to the eye and frequent junction breakage were the scourge of both practitioners and patients.
As the pioneer of the modern hybrid lens in SynergEyes, I’d like to reassure everybody that the lenses of today bear no resemblance of the lenses of the past. The consequence of SynergEyes research and development over the past 15 years has resulted in a range of successful designs to tackle a variety of fitting challenges, such as keratoconic and post-surgical corneas.
Our Duette lens has also taken hybrids from the realms of just being a speciality lens and into the mainstream. Empirically fitted like a soft lens it is a viable alternative to soft toric lenses for moderate to high astigmats and soft toric multifocals for astigmatic presbyopes.
Duette is a high Dk RGP with a SiHy skirt and like all other lenses in the extensive SynergEyes range, it has a patented Hyperbond junction that a recent BCLA poster showed can be stressed to 300% of its original size without failure of the bond. Additionally it has a patented cushion zone that keeps the junction away from the surface of the eye. This gives an area of ‘edge lift’ which, along with the lens movement, acts as a tear pump. Thus when fitted correctly there are two processes in play to deliver fresh tears to the cornea.
We welcome Elements entry into the hybrid area and hope that it will stimulate greater interest in, and fitting of, this lens modality to a wider range of patients. However, I would encourage practitioners to make evidence-based lens prescribing decisions and to look at the quality and quantity of supporting data available, before fitting a new lens on a patient’s eye for the first time. SynergEyes has a vast array of clinical studies and articles, as well as practitioner testimonials, supporting its successful use and many of these can be found at www.synergeyes.co.uk.
Final reassurance should come from the fact that all SynergEyes lenses come with a no quibble fitting guarantee that results in a full lens credit should they not work for any reason whatsoever.