STRUGGLE WITH HYDROGEL CONTACT LENS WEAR INCREASES WITH AGE IN YOUNG ADULTS, STUDY SHOWS
JACKSONVILLE, FL (April 7, 2009) – From the ages of 18 to 35, hydrogel contact lens wearers report an increasing struggle with contact lens wear and express more problems due to feelings of dryness and discomfort compared to silicone hydrogel wearers, a new study reveals. Older hydrogel contact lens wearers are much more likely to consider discontinuing contact lens wear compared with younger hydrogel wearers or silicone hydrogel contact lens wearers in general, data also shows.
“These findings suggest that practitioners should routinely query their young adult contact lens patients about how their lenses feel rather than just how well they can see,” says Sheila Hickson-Curran, Director, Medical Affairs, VISTAKON®, Division of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc., and a co-author of the study. “Since the data were collected in 2005, several new silicone hydrogel lenses have entered the market. Doctors now have a wide array of lens options, such as ACUVUE® OASYSTM Brand Contact Lenses, which can address contact lens dissatisfaction due to feelings of dryness and discomfort, and potentially keep patients from abandoning contact lens wear altogether.”
The research, which compared the symptoms and experiences associated with habitual hydrogel and silicone hydrogel contact lenses among young adults and measured their association with age, appears in the May issue of Contact Lens & Anterior Eye, the official journal of the British Contact Lens Association.
About the Study
Questionnaire responses from 699 hydrogel and 183 silicone hydrogel wearers regarding their habitual contact lenses as they entered two prospective North American clinical trials were combined into one dataset and analyzed to test the association of age with features indicating struggle with contact lens wear. Hydrogel and silicone hydrogel wearers from 70 sites in the United States and 14 sites in Canada participated in the study. Prevalence by age was compared between groups with Pearson’s chi-square and within groups with Spearman’s correlation coefficient.
Overall, silicone hydrogel wearers had significantly fewer symptoms or problems in the majority of variables studied.
Fewer silicone hydrogel wearers reported feeling dryness and discomfort at the end of the day compared to those with hydrogel contact lenses. Silicone hydrogel wearers also reported a lower frequency of dryness and irritation with their contact lenses and better end-of-day comfort and moistness on the lens compared to wearers of hydrogel lenses. End-of-day-dryness was reported by nearly twice as many respondents as end-of-day-discomfort in either lens group. This was especially noticeable among hydrogel lens wearers and is in agreement with earlier studies on hydrogel lenses, researchers note.
Hydrogel lens wearers reported more sensitivity to environmental triggers such as smoky or dry air compared to their silicone hydrogel-wearing counterparts, and discomfort in these two settings increased with age for the hydrogel wearers only.
Hydrogel wearers were more likely to consider discontinuation of contact lens wear as they got older, with those in the 30-35-year-old age group more than three times as likely to consider discontinuation than the 18-24-year-old hydrogel wearers (from 4.6% for ages 18-24 to 14.2% for 30-35-year-olds). The proportion of silicone hydrogel wearers considering discontinuation did not change with age, remaining steady at 9 percent (p=0.46), perhaps due to many of these patients being previously diagnosed with dry eye.
Previous diagnosis of dry eye increased with age in the hydrogel wearers from 10.6 percent to 21.1 percent (18-24 vs. 30-35 years), but was approximately 19 percent in the silicone hydrogel wearers across age groups. Contact lens awareness was prominent, especially for hydrogel wearers and increased markedly and steadily with age in both groups (Hyd: 13.0-23.0%, p=0.047; SiHy: 6.3-16.7%, p=0.005). Compared to the hydrogel wearers, contact lens awareness was reported by significantly fewer silicone hydrogel wearers overall (9.1% vs. 17.9%, p=0.005).
“These numbers demonstrate that patients are experiencing dryness and discomfort with hydrogel lenses at a much younger age than one would expect,” explains Hickson-Curran.
The study was sponsored by VISTAKON®, a division of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc.
Source: Chalmers, RL, et al. Struggle with hydrogel CL wear increases with age in young adults. Contact Lens Anterior Eye (2009), doi:10.1016/j.clae.2008.12.001
ACUVUE® OASYS™ and VISTAKON® are trademarks of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc.
