Lens material

Personnel involved in the handling of methanol require eye and skin protection from the irritating properties of methanol in the event of a spill. Contact lenses should not be worn, since plastic lens materials may absorb and concentrate methanol against the eye. Additional respiratory protection is not required with adequate local explosion-proof ventilation. 

No particular contact lens type or product is considered universally superior. In some regions of the world hard lenses dominate the market, eg, some European countries and Japan in other regions, eg. North America and Scandinavia, soft lenses dominate. Contact lens practitioners select their preferred type of lens using criteria other than just lens material properties. However, among soft lenses, HEMA-based lenses are prescribed most often, and among hard lenses, siUcone—acrylate RGP lenses are most common. 

To remain safe and efficacious on the eye, contact lenses must maintain clear and wetted surfaces, provide an adequate supply of atmospheric oxygen to and adequate expulsion of carbon dioxide from the cornea, allow adequate flow of the eye s tear fluid, and avoid excessive abrasion of the ocular surface or eyeflds, all under a variety of environmental conditions. The clinical performance of a contact lens is controlled by the nature of the lens material the lens design the method and quaUty of manufacture the lens parameters or specifications prescribed by the practitioner and the cleaning, disinfection, and wearing procedures used by the patient. 

Clinical experience has shown that certain types of lens materials are more prone to deposit problems. In general, lenses with negatively charged moieties at the surface accumulate greater amounts of lysozyme, the principal tear film protein (10). The introduction and use of disposable lenses make these deposits and their clinical problems less significant. 

Water Content and Refractive Index. The water content of a hydrophilic contact lens is a determinant of other properties. The relationship of water content and Dk is discussed above. Water content in lenses is inversely related to refractive index (23), a key property for vision correction. A lens material with a higher refractive index refracts light to a greater degree, allowing more vision correction with a thinner material. The water content of a lens is generally determined gravimetricaHy or inferred from the relationship to refractive index, measured with a refractometer (24). 

The strength of a hydrophilic lens material determines how well the material survives the patient s handling, cleaning, and disinfection regimen. Materials with higher Dk have been found to be generally more fragile (31). 

Rigid lenses have tensile properties in the tens of MPa (thousands of g/mm ), which give rise to excellent vision but poorer comfort. Although tensile properties can be determined for these materials, lens performance is not as sensitive to these values as for hydrophilic lens materials. 

Wettabihty is beheved to be a dynamic process involving interactions of the ocular environment and lens material (44). No method has been found to predict accurately the in vivo wettabihty of a lens material. 

Although a variety of test methods, eg, Dk, modulus, and tear strength, exist to determine key properties of potential contact lens materials, a number of properties, eg, wettabihty and deposition, have no predictive methodology short of actual clinical experience. 

Hard lenses can be defined as plastic lenses that contain no water, have moduli in excess of 5 MPa (500 g/mm ), and have T well above the temperature of the ocular environment. Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) has excellent optical and mechanical properties and scratch resistance and was the first and only plastic used as a hard lens material before higher oxygen-permeable materials were developed. PMMA lenses also show excellent wetting in the ocular environment even though they are hydrophobic, eg, the contact angle is 66°. 

Silicone Acrylates. The development of rigid gas-permeable lens materials advanced significantly after the development of polysiloxanylaLkyl acrylates and methacrylates (1), as a component in hard lens materials (56,57), as claimed in a series of patents (58—62). 

Table 1. Partial List of Rigid Gas-Permeable Lens Materials...

Silicone—Fluorosilicone Lenses. Sdicone mbber has long been considered a unique contact lens material (55), and the development of sdicone mbber lenses has been reviewed in earHer editions of the Eniyclopedia. The oxygen permeabdity of sdicone mbber, >300 barrers, is virtually unsurpassed by any other polymeric material considered for contact lens appHcations. 

The principal problems for sdicone mbber as a viable lens material are the nonpolar nature, which gives Hpid deposits and wettabdity problems and the tendency to adhere to the cornea. Efforts to modify the sdicone lens surface for improved wettabdity have achieved limited success. These efforts include grafting hydrophilic monomers, such as HEMA, GM (150), and NVP (151—153), to the lens surface and plasma treatments of finished lenses. Efforts to improve the movement of sdicone lenses on the cornea with various lens designs have not been successfld, and the cause of lens—cornea adherence, which is not an exclusive problem of sdicone lenses, is an active area of research. 

Grouping for rigid gas-permeable lenses was published by FDA in 1989. The generic names and oxygen permeabilities of rigid gas-permeable (RGP) lens materials are provided in Table 7 [310]. 

Hard contact lenses are composed of a polymer that repels water because the constituent repeating units (the monomers that link together to form the polymer) are nonpolar, hydrophobic segments. The first hard contact lens was constructed in 1948 from the monomer known as methyl methacrylate (MMA), yielding the polymer poly(methyl methacrylate) or PMMA. This material offers durability, optical transparency, and acceptable wettability for optimal comfort. Today the rigid lens material of hard contact lenses is often constructed by combining MMA with one or more additional hydrophobic monomers to provide better gas permeability. 

Contact Lens Material. Dr. Jay F. Kunzler and Dr. Joseph A. McGee, Department of Polymer Chemistry, Bausch Lomb, Chemistry Industry 21 (1995), 615. 

Generic Soft Lens Materials, Visiontech Services, http //www.vstk.com/softLens.htm... 

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