Purpose: This study was to assess the influence of silicone hydrogel contact lenses wearing time on corneal higher-order aberrations (HOAs), visual performance, and subjective ocular symptoms. Methods: Thirty subjects took part in this study. Subjects were fitted with silicone hydrogel contact lenses (Biofinity). Best-corrected visual acuity (VA) at two contrast levels (100% and 10%) and best-corrected contrast sensitivity (CS) for four spatial frequencies (3, 6, 12, and 18 cycles per degree) were measured under photopic and mesopic conditions. Corneal HOAs were measured with 4-mm and 6-mm pupils using Wavefront Analyzer. All measurements were performed respectively after 2 hours and 9 hours wear with the silicone hydrogel lenses during a day. Subjects were asked by a study examiner to complete the questionnaire for contact lens-related subjective ocular symptoms. Results: Data for this study were employed for fifty-four eyes (27 subjects; 14 females, 13 males) and the subjects were 24.30 ± 2.96 years. For the subjects, current or previous experience with contact lenses was 23 subjects and non-experience with contact lenses was 4 subjects. Regarding visual quality under photopic and mesopic conditions, there was no statistically significant difference in high contrast and low contrast visual acuity as well as contrast sensitivity between 2 hours and 9 hours wear. For corneal HOAs, we also did not find any significant changes in total HOAs, third-order, fourth-order, coma, and spherical aberration for both 4-mm and 6-mm pupils between the two wearing time. In the relative frequency of contact lens-related subjective ocular symptoms, there were statistically differences in discomfort, dryness, and closing eyes between 2 hours and 9 hours wear within the brand (p=0.031, p=0.001, and p=0.031, respectively) (after 9 hours of the lens wear, discomfort (52%), dryness (74%), and closing eyes (56%)); however, there were no significant differences in changeable vision and removing lenses between the two wearing time. Conclusions: Silicone hydrogel contact lenses used this study do not reduce optical quality of the eye and visual quality after nine hours of the contact lens wear during a day. However, the majority of soft contact lens wearers still encounter clinically significant ocular symptoms including discomfort and dryness with the silicone hydrogel lenses.

• Jeong-Mee Kim(Dept. of Optometry, Eulji University)
• Koon-Ja Lee(Dept. of Optometry, Eulji University)