The effect of tinted soft contact lens wear on functional visual acuity and higher-order aberrations.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the differences of functional visual acuity (FVA) and high order aberrations (HOAs) in relation to tinted and clear hydrogel soft contact lens (SCL) wear.


METHODS
A prospective comparative study was performed in 16 eyes of 16 healthy volunteers. Dynamic visual acuity (using a FVA measurement system) and higher-order aberrations (using a wavefront sensor) were compared in subjects wearing two types of soft contact lenses: 1-day Acuvue(®) (Vistakon, Jacksonville, FL) clear and the 1-day Acuvue(®) Define(TM) (Vistakon, Jacksonville, FL) tinted lens. The blink rates were recorded during FVA testing. The correlation between the difference of HOAs and differences in FVA values was analyzed.


RESULTS
The mean LogMAR FVA scores with clear and tinted SCLs were 0.07 ± 0.13 and 0.14 ± 0.17 (P<0.05). The mean blink frequencies with clear and tinted SCL wear were 18.4 ± 8.3 and 25.3 ± 4.7 blinks/min (P<0.05). Both 3rd-order aberrations and total HOAs showed statistically significant differences between the two types of soft contact lenses for 6mm pupil measurements (P<0.05). A significant positive linear correlation was observed between ΔHOAs and ΔLogMAR FVA for 6mm pupil measurements (R=0.53, P=0.04).


CONCLUSIONS
Tinted contact lens wear appears to induce a reduction in optical quality. Functional visual acuity measurement is a useful procedure to study the changes of visual performance and quality in tinted contact lens wear.
Department of Ophthalmology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Kazuhiro
K
Watanabe
Department of Ophthalmology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Minako
M
Kaido
Department of Ophthalmology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Reiko
R
Ishida
Department of Ophthalmology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan; Department of Ophthalmology, Tokyo Dental College, Ichikawa Hospital, Chiba, Japan. Electronic address: muratodooru2005@yahoo.co.jp.
Murat
M
Dogru
Department of Ophthalmology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Kazuno
K
Negishi
Department of Ophthalmology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Kazuo
K
Tsubota
D000328:Adult; D003116:Color; D003263:Contact Lenses, Hydrophilic / Q000145:classification*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020127:Recovery of Function; D012030:Refractive Errors / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014792:Visual Acuity; D055815:Young Adult
Functional visual acuity; Higher order aberration; Tinted soft contact lens