CONTACT LENSES TODAY

January 19, 2003

Contact Lenses Today® is edited by Dr. Joseph T. Barr and the staff of Contact Lens Spectrum. This week CLToday® reaches 9,267 readers in 74 countries.


CLs Get Consumer Branding
Ocular Sciences and The Procter & Gamble Company have signed a trademark licensing agreement under which OSI will manufacture and sell a line of proprietary cosmetic contact lenses under the Cover Girl brand name. OSI will begin marketing Cover Girl Colors for disposable replacement to licensed eyecare practitioners in North America this month. The lenses will launch with four opaque colors: Romantic Hazel, Breezy Blue, Gray Whisper and Spirited Green.

Summary of EFCLIN Congress
The 30th Congress and Exhibition of the European Federation of the Contact Lens Industry (EFCLIN), held in Antwerp, Belgium, in November 2002 brought together 183 participants from 98 companies and organizations from 20 countries. Twenty-two exhibitors, including Polymer Technology Corp., Paragon Vision Sciences and Benz Research & Development Corp., were there revealing the latest developments in machinery, materials, software, tools and packaging. At the congress, Renato Liffredo received the 2002 EFCLIN Technology Award in recognition of his work leading to the systematic transfer of contact lens designs into real-time manufacturing data.

The 31st EFCLIN Congress and Exhibition will take place in Barcelona, Spain, November 13 - 16, 2003.

CV ENCORE TORIC: So Much More Than Just "Location, Location, Location." It's patient preference, parameter range and in-stock product availability. Recent studies show that 95% of patients prefer CV Encore Toric to the leading disposable toric. And with the addition of a -2.25D cylinder power and sphere powers from +6.00D to -8.00D, you can now fit more of your patients with the most advanced disposable toric. Plus, you'll appreciate more than 99% in-stock product availability. For more information on this outstanding toric lens, contact CooperVision at (800) 341-2020 or visit the Web site at http://www.coopervision.com.
--ADVERTISING


French Researchers Study Acanthamoeba
Over six years, researchers in France assessed the risk factors, clinical characteristics, diagnosis and outcomes in patients treated for Acanthamoeba keratitis and found that the disease is serious and life threatening. They reviewed 25 cases of Acanthamoeba found either in corneal scrapings, contact lenses or storage solutions of 23 patients. The average delay between first symptoms and diagnosis was two months. All patients were treated with topical antiparasitic eye drops for two to six months and five patients received systemic treatment. Penetrating keratoplasty was performed in eight cases, conjunctival flap in one and enucleation in another case.

The researchers concluded that early diagnosis and treatment are essential for improving visual outcome and suggest using methods such as confocal microscopy and Acanthamoeba-PCR to improve the management of the disease because they allow for earlier diagnosis and treatment. Their findings were reported in the December 2002 issue of Journal Francais d'Ophtalmologie.

Abstract: Corneal Staining and PureVision
Using a double-masked, randomized, crossover experimental design, researchers in Ontario, Canada, compared subjective symptoms and signs in a group of 50 subjects wearing PureVision silicone hydrogel lenses on a daily wear basis for two consecutive one-month periods, during which time the subjects used either a Polyquad (polyquaternium-1) based system or a polyaminopropyl biguanide (PHMB) based system. The researchers observed significant levels of relatively asymptomatic corneal staining when subjects used the PHMB-based system, with 37% of subjects demonstrating a level of staining consistent with a classical solution-based toxicity reaction. Only 2% of the subjects exhibited staining with the Polyquad-based system. The researchers concluded that practitioners who fit silicone hydrogel contact lenses on a daily wear basis should be wary of the potential for certain polyaminopropl biguanide (PHMB)-containing multipurpose care systems to invoke corneal staining.
Jones, L.; MacDougall, N; Sorbara, L.G. Asymptomatic Corneal Staining Associated With the Use of Balafilcon Silicone-Hydrogel Contact Lenses Disinfected With a Polyaminopropyl Biguanide-Preserved Care Regimen. Optom Vis Sci 2002 Dec;79(12):753-61.


Editor's Commentary: Good Old Monovision
We saw a patient this past week for an initial check up after being dispensed her first contact lens every for one eye for monovision. She is a low hyperope who runs a medical billing office. I hadn't seen her before and before she came in I wondered if we'd need to adjust the power or switch to a bifocal. I wondered if she was driving while wearing the lens and whether she's adapted yet or rejected this method. Turns out, she was thrilled. She puts the lens in at work and takes it out for the drive home and is otherwise just as happy as can be with it. Despite the advance in bifocal lenses, monovision is still a great option for some patients. Peter Bergenske and I conducted a survey a while back that led us to believe that more practitioners were now choosing bifocals first before monovision. What do you think?

Fitting Tip: Suggestions for Vertexing Monovision
One statement made in optometry school by my contact lens instructor seems to hold true in an overwhelming majority of lenses for me. He told us to always start with the lowest add choice. Most people note distance loss in monovision more than they do near loss (which is technically not a loss, but a gain over a single vision distance Rx).

There's often some adjusting needed from the originally trialed Rx in monovision, but if you need to adjust to give better near vision, then people don't usually complain that the distance has suddenly worsened as much as when you need to adjust for better distance vision. That's when you hear the dreaded words, "But now I can't read that smaller print." If they couldn't read any print before monovision, they notice only improvement over that with the trialed Rx. If you immediately give them the best possible near vision at the cost of distance vision, then they expect perfect near vision as well as distance vision. Also, the less differential between the distance and near vision prescriptions, the less problems adjusting to the new modality.
-- Diane G. Fries-Balog, O.D., Montgomery County, PA


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