CONTACT LENSES TODAY

June 15, 2003

Contact Lenses Today® is edited by Dr. Joseph T. Barr and the staff of Contact Lens Spectrum. This week CLToday® reaches 9,314 readers in 74 countries.


Guideline Requires More Than CLs for Eye Protection
The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) recently released a new guideline that addresses the use of contact lenses and personal protective equipment by the industrial worker under the guidelines of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). In its Code of Federal Regulations, OSHA requires individuals who wear contact lenses in the workplace to combine them with appropriate industrial safety eye wear because it believes that regardless of the reason for wearing them, contact lenses don't fulfill the personal protective equipment requirements for ocular safety when worn by individuals performing eye hazardous tasks. To view the new guideline or the recommendations for contact lens use in an eye-hazardous environment, visit http://www.acoem.org/guidelines/article.asp?ID=58.

BCLA Welcomes Buckley as New President
At the recent British Contact Lens Association (BCLA) Clinical Conference and Exhibition, Graeme Young passed the title of President on to Roger Buckley, M.D. Dr. Buckley currently also holds the position of consultant ophthalmologist at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital and is the Bausch & Lomb chair of Ocular Medicine at City University, London, in the Department of Optometry and Visual Science.

Opti-Free Express Lasting Comfort No Rub Multi-purpose Disinfecting Solution achieved the highest loyalty rate among multi-purpose solutions buyers with 73% of their total ounce purchases awarded to Opti-Free Express Lasting Comfort No Rub Formula. The brand loyalty rate for Opti-Free Express was 10% higher than for ReNu and 12% than for Complete.* http://ww.norub.com.
*Data Source: ACNielsen Household panel data 52 weeks ending November 23, 2002.

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GOS Postponed
This year's Global Orthokeratology Symposium (GOS) meeting has been postponed because of the continuing severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) situation in Toronto, Canada. The organizers are in the process of choosing the venue and date for the next GOS and will post this information as soon as possible.

G.P. Specialists Joins C&E Vision
According to C&E Vision President Harvey Yamamoto, O.D., on July 1, 2003, C&E Vision and G.P. Specialists will join forces in providing corneal reshaping, orthokeratology and myopia control.

Vistakon to Offer Special Zagat's Guide Editions
Vistakon has teamed up with Zagat Survey to distribute America's Most Popular Restaurants 2003 guidebooks, which are branded with Acuvue Brand Bifocal Contact Lenses design elements and information. To accompany the Zagat Survey books, Vistakon is also distributing a specialty lens tool kit to approximately 10,000 eyecare practitioners nationwide to share with patients in the exam room. The kit includes measurement devices for fitting patients with Acuvue Bifocal and Acuvue Brand Toric Contact Lenses, along with patient take-home brochures and coupons and the Zagat Survey books.

Intacs Approved for International Markets
Addition Technology, Inc., maker of Intacs prescription inserts for surgical vision correction, has received authorization from the governments of Australia, Mexico and South Korea to market Intacs. The approved range for Australia and Mexico is similar to that for Europe (-0.50D to -5.00D of myopia and 1.00D or less of astigmatism) with insert sizes extending to 0.45mm. In South Korea, Intacs inserts share a similar approval to the United States, where they're approved for -1.00D to -3.00D of myopia with 1.00D or less of astigmatism with five sizes ranging from 0.25mm to 0.35mm. The company is currently conducting studies in Europe using Intacs to treat hyperopia, keratoconus and myopia with greater than 1.00D of astigmatism.

Abstract: GP Scleral Lenses Can Help When All Else Fails
In describing the vision-correcting and therapeutic benefits of GP scleral contact lenses in managing irregular corneal surface disorders and ocular surface diseases, researchers found that scleral contact lenses can provide successful and safe visual and therapeutic solutions for ocular conditions when conventional contact lenses and medical treatment have failed and where surgery is undesirable or contraindicated. They reviewed the charts of 48 consecutive patients (66 eyes) whose management included the use of GP scleral lenses and found that the most common indication for fitting the GP scleral lenses was keratoconus in patients who had to stop wearing other types of corneal lenses (44 eyes, 75%). Other indications included extreme corneal irregularity after penetrating keratoplasty, nonhealing corneal ulcer, postoperative dry eye syndrome following LASIK, severe exposure keratitis and acid burn. With a mean wearing time of 16.2 hours each day, 91% of keratoconus patients achieved visual acuity of 20/40 or better.

Segal, O; Barkana, Y; Hourovitz, D; Behrman, S; Kamun, Y; Avni, I; Zadok, D. Scleral Contact Lenses May Help Where Other Modalities Fail. Cornea 2003 May;22(4):308-10.


Editor's Commentary: Eye Protection from Contact Lenses
Our lead story states what we already knew. Contact lenses alone are not adequate for industry or even for home labor, where risk of splash or foreign body damage is present. But keep this in mind: More often than not, contact lenses are a safety device, protecting the eye from foreign substances. One of my favorite stories is the one where the weed whacker damaged the soft contact lens but not the eye, reported by Mike Spinell, O.D., F.A.A.O. This will be the topic of an upcoming Contact Lens Spectrum continuing education article.

Fitting Tip: Finding a Satisfactory Presbyopic Solution
I encounter many presbyopes who are interested in contact lenses but who have a significant amount of astigmatism in only one eye. I certainly can and have fit GP bifocals, but I've figured out a twist in fitting disposable soft lenses. I fit the astigmatic eye with a toric soft lens and the other eye with a bifocal lens. This gives the patient binocularity at distance, which works much better then monovision, and the patient can also read at near. I've really become quite a hero because most of these patients were told by previous practitioners that they weren't able to wear contact lenses.
-- Ann Kurzer, O.D., Beavercreek, Ohio


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