Is there something like a “Healthy Contact Lens”?

Contact lenses (CL) are popular. Soft CL are in the vast majority in spite of severe inherent risk factors. On the other hand, design, materials & properties of scleral CL have greatly improved and they are used as therapeutic devices. This leads to the question whether there is something like a “healthy” CL.

CL history is reviewed with changes in designs, materials & properties over the last century together with the implications of the term “healthy” CL.

Scleral lenses that cover the complete ocular surface (OS) with a rigid spherical material are almost lost in favor of CL from soft materials. Even though the adaptation to soft CL is short & wearing is easy they are still not a toy. Apart from the ability to correct refraction they cannot improve the health of the OS in terms of anatomy & physiology. Careless use can have severe risks to OS health as detailed in a vast body of literature. In particular for children and teenagers it is made easy to view soft CL as must-have life style devices and they come into the focus of a advertisements.

For principal reasons, a “healthy” CL is almost a contradiction in terms. However, scleral lenses that cover the complete OS, have a therapeutic potential in many OS disease conditions.