According to a poster presentation from Johnson & Johnson Vision at the 2026 Optometry’s Meeting of the American Optometric Association, held from June 17-20, in Phoenix, Arizona, a novel daily disposable multifocal toric contact lens with 1.00 D cylinder correction delivered visual quality and ease of fit comparable to an existing nontoric multifocal daily disposable lens, despite being evaluated in a population with meaningfully higher levels of refractive astigmatism.1
The cross-study comparison suggests the multifocal toric design extends daily disposable multifocal lens coverage to a population of presbyopic wearers with astigmatism not well served by nontoric multifocal options. It was presented by a group of authors, including Eugene A. Osae, OD, PhD, of the University of Houston College of Optometry.
Key Takeaways for Optometrists
- The new multifocal toric daily disposable lens performed within 1 letter of logMAR acuity compared with the established non-toric multifocal lens across distance, intermediate, and near, despite being studied in patients with up to 1.75D of astigmatism.
- Fitting success was high and comparable between the 2 designs—96.6% of multifocal toric subjects were fit in 2 pairs or fewer, close to the 98.5% rate for the non-toric multifocal lens—suggesting the toric design does not meaningfully increase chair time or fitting complexity.
- This expands viable daily disposable multifocal options for presbyopic patients with -1.00 to -1.75 D astigmatism, a population that previously may have required toric single-vision correction with reading add compromise, off-label multifocal fitting, or specialty lens referral.
- As with any manufacturer-sponsored cross-study comparison, the 2 patient populations were enrolled in separate clinical trials rather than a single head-to-head randomized comparison; consider this when weighing the strength of the comparative claims.
Both lenses share the same senofilcon A material and ACUVUE PUPIL OPTIMIZED design platform with 3 near-add options, while the multifocal toric design additionally incorporates the Blink Stabilized design and a 1.00 D cylinder correction.1 The comparison drew on 2 separate multisite, prospective, single-arm clinical trials: a multifocal toric study enrolling 171 subjects with refractive astigmatism of -1.00 to -1.75 D with axes at 90±15 or 180±15 degrees, and a nontoric multifocal study enrolling 136 subjects with 0.00 to -0.75 D astigmatism. Demographic profiles were similar between the 2 studies, with both populations predominantly female, non-Hispanic/Latino, and recruited within the United States; the nontoric multifocal study was conducted across 11 sites, and the multifocal toric study across 15 sites.1
Both studies followed an identical 3-visit design comprising baseline/dispense, a first follow-up (3 days for the nontoric multifocal lens, 1 week for the multifocal toric lens), and a second follow-up 1 week later, with up to 2 power modifications per eye permitted at visits 1 and 2.1 Outcome measures included logMAR visual acuity, subjective assessments of vision, and a fit-success metric defined as the number of lens pairs required to achieve optimized vision correction.
Vision outcomes, patient satisfaction, and fitting success across both lens designs
After 1 week of optimized lens wear, mean binocular high luminance, high contrast (HLHC) logMAR visual acuities for the nontoric multifocal and multifocal toric lenses were within 1 letter—less than a 0.02 logMAR difference—across distance (4 m), intermediate (64 cm), and near (40 cm) testing distances.1 Subjective vision outcomes were similarly aligned: top-two-box (T2B) most favorable responses on a 5-point satisfaction scale differed by less than 10 percentage points between the 2 lenses across all 3 measured domains, including satisfaction with distance vision (83.1% multifocal vs 87.2% multifocal toric), near vision (77.2% vs 72.0%), and overall quality of vision (84.6% vs 78.7%).
Regarding ease of fitting, the multifocal toric lens was successfully fit in 2 pairs or fewer for 96.6% of subjects (99% CI, 92.4% to 99.1%), compared with 98.5% for the nontoric multifocal lens (99% CI, 95.9% to 99.7%).1 The study authors concluded the multifocal toric contact lens, evaluated in a population with -1.00 to -1.75 D refractive astigmatism, provided visual quality and ease of fit similar to that of the non-toric multifocal lens evaluated in a population with 0.00 to -0.75 D astigmatism, extending coverage of daily disposable multifocal lenses to a new population of presbyopic wearers with clinically meaningful astigmatism.1
The findings are relevant for optometrists who have historically had to choose between fitting astigmatic presbyopes in toric single-vision lenses, off-label multifocal use, or referring out for specialty lens options.1 A daily disposable multifocal toric option performing comparably to an established nontoric multifocal lens broadens the chair-side fitting pathway for this patient population without requiring a different fitting philosophy or expectation-setting conversation.
References
Franklin R, Osae E, Olivares G, Cannon-Hill J, Karkkainen T. The performance of a novel daily disposable multifocal toric contact lens compared to an existing multifocal contact lens. Presented at: AOA 2026; JUne 17-20; Phoenix, AZ. Poster #17.
