Practitioners could have an effective new option to offer their patients with keratoconus, irregular astigmatism or other corneal pathologies. According to a recent study, mini-scleral lenses with bitangential peripheral geometry show good clinical and subjective performance results in this patient population.

Researchers from the Netherlands collected data on 133 patients fit for the mini-scleral lenses for periods of up to 15 months. They evaluated parameters including diagnosis, clinical indication for scleral lenses, previous contact lens type, subjective performance, horizontal visible iris diameter, corrected distance visual acuity and scleral lens fitting characteristics.

The two most common indications in the study were keratoconus (45% of patients) and irregular astigmatism (22%). Subjective performance results were encouraging, with 79% of patients scoring comfort as either a four or five out of five and 82% of patients wearing their lenses 12 hours a day or longer. In 91% of cases, the patient achieved optimal values for centration, and 83% of cases achieved optimal values for movement. Additionally, median corrected distance visual acuity was 0.022 logarithm of the minimal angle of resolution and median stabilization axis was 50 degrees.

Based on these results, the study concluded that this modality is “an effective option for managing patients who have irregular astigmatism or other corneal pathology.”