A new review of soft contact lens wear in children found adverse effects were low and comparable to rates in adult wearers, supporting contact lens-based myopia management in children. 

“Parents often ask eye care practitioners if children can safely wear contact lenses. This work adds to the substantial evidence of safe, soft contact lens wear in children and should help ECPs reassure families as they consider myopia management options,” said co-author, Dr John McNally, clinical research director at Coopervision who funded the study as part of the US Food and Drug Administration approval requirements for the company’s MiSight 1 day contact lenses.   

The retrospective cohort study of safety of paediatric soft contact lens wear (ReCSS) reviewed 963 US children aged 8 to 17-years-old. The children were fitted with soft contact lenses by age 12, with most receiving their first fit at age 11. The average duration of wear was 2.8 years per child. The review focused on adverse events including microbial keratitis (MK), contact lens peripheral ulcers, contact lens acute red eye, infiltrative keratitis, contact lens papillary conjunctivitis and other minor events. 

Principal investigator Dr Robin Chalmers presented the findings at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) virtual meeting, concluding that the annual rate of infiltrative adverse events was very low (0.66%/year), as was the annual rate of contact lens papillary conjunctivitis (0.48%/year). The study estimated a MK rate of 7.4/10,000 years in soft contact lens wearers aged 8-16 years, comparable to the estimated rates in adult wearers.