The second part of a CRT nationwide consumer editorial and advertising campaign from Paragon Vision Sciences was featured in a special weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal on December 5, 2009. According to the company, the consumer driven editorial, "Corrective Lenses Offer Various Options," will reach over one million households and newsstands and serves as an unbiased medical update for consumers who may be unaware of alternative methods to obtain vision correction with multifocal, astigmatic and corneal reshaping contact lenses.
     The special edition was distributed in the following markets: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, D.C., West Virginia and Southeastern Canada. The complete article can be found on www.crtvision.com.
     "As our CRT outreach campaign expands, our relentless focus on creating consumer awareness about the benefits of CRT will grow stronger in 2010. As a company dedicated to improving lives through better vision, it is our hope to reach hundreds of thousands of consumers with a positive message about options in vision care and the importance of seeing their eye care professional on a routine basis," said Joe Sicari, President and CEO of Paragon Vision Sciences.

The Contact Lens Manufacturers Association (CLMA), announced the recipients of the prestigious Seal of Excellence in Manufacturing. The awarding of the Seal of Excellence is based on results of a double blind, independent quality control evaluation of GP contact lenses produced by member laboratories. Tolerances established by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI Standard Z80.20 - Contact Lenses) are the basis of the evaluation.
     The following laboratories were awarded the CLMA's Seal of Excellence for 2010-2012: ABB ConCise Optical, Alameda, CA; ABBA Optical, Inc., Stone Mountain, GA; Accu Lens, Denver, CO; Advanced Vision Technologies, Golden, CO; American Contact Lens Service, Inc., Indianapolis, IN; Art Optical, Grand Rapids, MI; Blanchard Contact Lens, Inc. Manchester, NH; Corneal Design Corporation, Gaithersburg, MD; Diversified Ophthalmics, Inc., Cincinnati, OH; Firestone Optics, Inc., Kansas City, MO; International Contact Lens Labs, Rego Park, NY; Lens Dynamics, Inc., Wheat Ridge, CO; Lensco, Phoenix, AZ; Luzerne Optical Laboratories, Wilkes-Barre, PA; Precision Optics, Omaha, NE; Quality Contact Lens Company, Green Bay, WI; Tru-Form Optics, Albuquerque, NM; Tru-Form Optics, San Antonio, TX; Tru-Form Optics, Euless, TX; Valley Contax; Springfield, OR, and Visionary, Inc., Anaheim, CA.
     "The CLMA Seal of Excellence signifies achievement of the pre-eminent degree of manufacturing expertise needed to meet a demanding level of inspection and to produce the high quality contact lenses which meet or exceed applicable industry standards," said Chris Pantle, President of the CLMA. "The CLMA extends its congratulations to the award recipients."

Your practice thrives when your patients are healthy and happy-and ACUVUE® OASYS™ Brand Contact Lenses with HYDRACLEAR® Plus can help you fulfill this goal, by providing exceptional comfort, vision, and health. It's a fact: more than 9 out of 10 patients stay in ACUVUE® OASYS™ Brand.¹ So when you fit your patients with ACUVUE® OASYS™, you're laying a solid foundation of patient commitment and satisfaction leading to practice growth.
$100 rebate for new wearers!
Good when patients get an eye exam and purchase 8 boxes of ACUVUE® OASYS™ (spherical product only). Visit www.jnjvisioncare.com/rebates.jsp for more details.

1. Data on file.
ACUVUE® Brand Contact Lenses are indicated for vision correction. As with any contact lens, eye problems, including corneal ulcers, can develop. Some wearers may experience mild irritation, itching or discomfort. Lenses should not be prescribed if patients have any eye infection, or experience eye discomfort, excessive tearing, vision changes, redness or other eye problems. Consult the package insert for complete information. Complete information is also available from VISTAKON®, Division of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc., by calling 1-800-843-2020 or by visiting jnjvisioncare.com.
HYDRACLEAR® Plus is our brand name for the next generation of our proprietary technology that allows us to use a higher volume of a moisture rich wetting agent in a state of the art formulation. This creates a more wettable, ultra smooth contact lens, especially for challenging environments that make eyes feel dry.
ACUVUE®, ACUVUE® OASYS™, HYDRACLEAR®, and VISTAKON® are trademarks of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc.
© Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc. 2009.
--ADVERTISING

ABB Concise has improved the functionality of its online contact lens ordering service, YourLens.com. The site now offers practices enhanced retail pricing functionality that can increase revenue by maximizing tiered pricing and other discounts. "Adopting a tier pricing structure and using pricing guidelines from ABB Concise's Retail Price Monitor should enable most accounts to achieve a two percentage point increase in gross profit from soft lens sales. That would mean an additional $1,600 to $2,400 per practice, depending on its size," said Kevin Dickman, the company's E-Commerce Solutions Supervisor.
     "Customers with Yourlens.com-powered web stores can now offer their patients semi-annual contact lens pricing and a special column just for our new 'auto ship' functionality. Also new are pricing tiers that allow our customers to design competitively priced promotions for their loyal patients. To make these changes easier for our customers, we also introduced a price import/export function that allows our customers to download and work on tier pricing using a CSV file at their leisure and then upload it back to the web site," said Dickman.
     ABB Concise also has introduced newly designed menus and grids to provide the best possible experience for navigating through the enhanced retail pricing area via www.abbconcise.com. 

The Contact Lens Spectrum 2009 calendar, which mailed with the November 2008 issue, highlights an interesting and challenging contact lens case each month. The December case report, Dry Eye and Pingueculae Do Not Preclude Contact Lens Wear, follows the case of a patient with dry eye and pingueculae who wanted to wear contact lenses but had been told he was an unsuitable candidate. To view the details of the case, visit www.clspectrum.com/photocalendar.asp?month=December. 
     You can also view case studies from previous months in the archive at the bottom of the page.
--ADVERTISING

Bausch & Lomb's (B&L) World Headquarters in Rochester, N.Y., has earned the Energy Star rating for energy efficiency from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). Commercial buildings earning an Energy Star rating use an average of 40% less energy than typical buildings and release 35% less carbon into the atmosphere. The USEPA awards Energy Star ratings to buildings scoring 75 or higher on an energy performance rating scale of 100.
     "The Energy Star rating helps demonstrate Bausch & Lomb's commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship," said Steve Haupt, Director, Corporate Real Estate, B&L. "As part of the application process, Ken Nau and his team from Grubb & Ellis Management Services coordinated a rigorous, externally certified engineering evaluation that included electricity consumption, fuel consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and indoor air quality."
     The USEPA introduced the Energy Star rating program in 1992 as a voluntary partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and encourage energy efficiency. The label now appears on more than 50 types of products, many new homes and thousands of commercial and industrial buildings. Additional information is available at www.energystar.gov.

Plan now to attend the Global Specialty Lens Symposium in January 2010. With an expert international faculty and a CE-accredited agenda, the 2010 GSLS will include insightful presentations by experts in the field, hands-on demonstrations of cutting-edge products as well as scientific papers and posters. Look for more detailed information in future issues of Contact Lens Spectrum and online at www.GSLSymposium.com.
--ADVERTISING

Obstructive dysfunction of the meibomian glands (MGD) is surprisingly frequent in the general population and increases with age. Clinically, the focus is mainly on the consequences at the ocular surface in the sense of an evaporative dry eye syndrome. However, in addition, chronic obstruction of the meibomian glands also leads to degeneration of the secretory gland tissue which can result in a secondary hyposecretion even if the primary obstruction is later resolved by therapeutic approaches.
     In this article, important influencing factors in the pathogenesis of obstructive MGDs and their interaction during the progression of the disease are systematically analyzed and displayed in a flow diagram. Age, hormonal disturbances and environmental influences, such as contact lenses, as well as qualitative alterations in the composition of the meibomian oil (meibum) lead to hyperkeratinization of the ductal epithelium and increased viscosity of the meibum which result, either alone or in combination, in obstruction of the duct and orifice. This leads to a lack of meibum on the lid margin and tear film with downstream hyperevaporative dry eye syndrome. At the same time, obstruction leads to a stasis of meibum inside the meibomian gland with increased pressure and resulting dilatation of the ducts and in atrophy of the acini with rarefaction of the secretory meibocytes and gland dropout. Stasis can also increase the growth of commensal bacteria, their production of oil degrading enzymes (lipases) and release of toxic mediators. These factors can, in return, act as self-enforcing feedback loops in the sense of vicious circles that aggravate the primary hyperkeratinization and compositional disturbance of meibum and can hence lead to a progressive MGD.
Knop E, Knop N. Meibomian glands: Part IV: Functional interactions in the pathogenesis of meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD). Ophthalmologe 2009;106:980-7.

Patients perceive that lubricating or rewetting drops should only be used if their contacts or eyes feel dry. But people have varying degree of pain/comfort thresholds and many contact lens wearers simply get used to their lenses being blurry and less comfortable at the end of the day. I find it helps if I tell my patients that an additional benefit of lubricating drops is to allow the lens to float. I explain that the cornea sloughs off dead cells just like their skin does, and by allowing the lens to float, it permits trapped irritants to float away from the corneal surface. I also explain that because drops rehydrate the lens, the optics will be clearer. Patients appreciate the information that rewetting drops have a purpose other than just lubrication.
Ally Stoeger, OD
Burke, VA

One of the things we have addressed in Contact Lens Spectrum is the impact of the economy on our patients' behaviors. Specifically, tight times can be associated with cutting corners including things like using saline rather than a contact lens care solution, reusing daily disposable lenses, or extending the wearing period of frequent replacement lenses. It is critical that you and your staff remain diligent in educating patients about the potential negative consequences associated with these behaviors.
Jason J. Nichols, OD, MPH, PhD, FAAO 

This month at www.siliconehydrogels.org: adverse events with daily wear of silicone hydrogels, SEALs with extended wear, controlling case contamination, contact lens complications, and part two of our AAO 2008 synopsis.