Challenges to the new soft contact lens wearer and strategies for clinical management.

Soft contact lens discontinuations have a dramatic impact on the overall success of this form of vision correction, and evidence suggests that the reasons for contact lens cessation are different for new wearers than for established lens users. In descending order, these relate to vision, discomfort, handling, inconvenience/loss of interest, ocular health and cost. This paper considers the background and underlying evidence for these causes of soft lens discontinuation in new wearers, and presents clinical management strategies to minimise this phenomenon. Such measures can reasonably be expected to significantly reduce the number of contact lens discontinuations leading to happier patients, increased satisfaction for eye care professionals (ECPs), and greater success for both individual practices and the contact lens industry more broadly.

CLEAR - Evidence-based contact lens practice.

Evidence-based contact lens -->practice involves finding, appraising and applying research findings as the basis for patient management decisions. These decisions should be informed by the strength of the research study designs that address the question, as well as by the experience of the practitioner and the preferences and environment of the patient. This reports reviews and summarises the published research evidence that is available to inform soft and rigid contact lens history and symptoms taking, anterior eye health examination (including the optimised use of ophthalmic dyes, grading scales, imaging techniques and lid eversion), considerations for contact lens selection (including the ocular surface measurements required to select the most appropriate lens parameter, lens modality and material selection), evaluation of lens fit, prescribing (teaching self-application and removal, adaptation, care regimen and cleaning instructions, as well as -->minimising risks of lens wear through encouraging compliance) and an aftercare routine.