30-Day Contact Lenses Become a Reality

Bausch & Lomb gets nod for long-use lenses

FRIDAY, Dec. 7, 2001 (HealthDayNews) -- Stick a monthly "reminder" in your e-mail, and forget about those daily or weekly notes to change your contact lenses.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Bausch & Lomb PureVision contact lenses for up to 30 days of continuous wear. Studies indicate that the side effects of wearing the lenses continuously are equivalent to wearing no contact lenses at all. Bausch & Lomb had already prepared its marketing material.

Clinical trials on the 30-day lenses were headed by Dr. S. E. Nilsson of the department of ophthalmology at Linkoping University in Sweden. He oversaw a one-year study comparing the performance and complication rates of PureVision with other silicone hydrogel lenses in 30-day continuous wear and seven-day extended wear. The study used 504 patients in random tests to compare the 30-day continuous wear (353 patients) to the seven-day extended wear (151 patients) lenses. The complication rate with PureVision was low, and sight-threatening events didn't occur, according to the study.

Another examiner was Dr. Michael DePaolis, an adjunct professor of optometry at Pennsylvania College of Optometry, and adjunct clinical associate in the department of ophthalmology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. "The lenses are engineered to be very safe and effective for the vast majority of people who wear them," he says.

The PureVision lenses were first approved for seven-day use by the FDA in 1997.

This site, All About Vision, gives you a number of contact lenses options.

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