Vistakon debuts silicone hydrogel daily wear

Orlando, FL-The first contact lens (CL) that combines the comfort of silicone hydrogel (SiH) and the convenience and eye health characteristics of a daily wear (DW) disposable lens was introduced here at the annual meeting of the American Optometric Association.

The Vistakon division of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Inc. announced that it has received clearance from the FDA to market the first hydrogel daily disposable lens in the U.S. The company is marketing the new lens under the name 1-DAY ACUVUE TruEye.

"You really can't ask for much more in a lens," Dr. Riley said. "These lenses would be great for any patient. Patients are going to put in a fresh, clean lens every day, and the [SiH] material has a unique wetting property. The patient is going to have the health of increased oxygen and also the physiological comfort and smoothness of the wetting agent. When we combined all these areas of the technology, we really end up with the best lens possible."

Gathering data

In an ongoing 1-year, 94-subject, randomized, investigator-masked, parallel-group study, the eye health of patients wearing the DW SiH lenses was compared with that of people who have never worn CLs. After 1 month of wear, the DW SiH lenses were shown to have no significant effect on the ocular surface of the eye as compared with non-CL wearers across these CL-associated measures associated with eye health:

One measure that was found to be different between wearers of the DW SiH lenses and non-CL wearers was conjunctival staining. "[CL] products with a thin edge profile have some degree of conjunctival staining, and that's generally perceived as insignificant. But we reported that along with all the other findings," Dr. Riley said.

"This new lens is the next level up," she noted. "You're not accepting compromise. I've been a practitioner for 18 years, and I've never seen this kind of physiological response or lack of physiological response that we have with this lens. That's an exciting opportunity to think about when fitting contact lenses."