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Relative performance of soft contact lenses having lathe-cut posterior surfaces with and without additional polishing.

O'Brien C, Charman WN

Contact Lens Research Clinic, Bausch and Lomb Ireland, 424/425 Industrial Estate, Cork Rd., Waterford, Ireland, and Department of Optometry and Neuroscience, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, UK. caroline.o'brien@bausch.com

After a preliminary investigation of the effects of tool feed rate and spindle speed on the surface roughness of unhydrated, lathe-cut polymacon surfaces, a laboratory and clinical comparison was made between lenses with identical parameters except that the lathe-cut posterior surface was left unpolished in the "test" lenses and was polished in the "control" lenses. The lenses had moulded anterior surfaces. Laboratory comparisons included surface roughness, lens power and its uniformity across the surface. Double-blind clinical trials over 4-hour (27 subjects) and 1-month (10 subjects) periods, involved one eye of each subject wearing a "test" lens and the other, a "control" lens. No clinically significant differences were found between the results for the test and control lenses. It is concluded that today's lathing technology makes a final polishing stage unnecessary.

Published 16 May 2006 in Cont Lens Anterior Eye, 29(2): 101-7.
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