History of contact lens

All about the history of contact lenses in details and the modern day used contact lenses

1. Presented By- Name- Abhishek Kashyap B.Optom 3 rd year Ridley college of optometry History of contact lens

2. Introduction Theoretical history of contact lenses The emergence of contact lenses The pioneering contact lens companies Contact lens material developments Hydrogel and Silicon contact lenses Rigid gas permeable contact lenses Disposable soft contact lenses Modern day contact lenses Layouts

3. Contact lenses are thin, clear plastic disks we wear in our eyes to improve our vision. It float on the tear film that covers our cornea. Like eyeglasses, contact lenses correct vision problems caused by refractive error. Introduction

4. THEORETICAL HISTORY OF CONTACT LENSES

5. He is the first to described a ‘ contact lens’ His sketches of a schematic eye and the head immersed in water have been used to illustrate the concept of a refractive system in ‘contact’ with the eye He describes the neutralization of the cornea by water and the mechanism of image formation at the optic nerve Leonardo da Vinci (1508)

6. He understood that better vision could be achieved by enlarging the size of the retinal image The retinal image size could be enlarged by elongating the antero-posterior axis of the eye which can be achieved by hydrodiascope and applied to the eye His theory contributed significantly to the development of telescope , not the contact lens Rene Descartes (1637)

7. He used a tube 25 mm long and closed one end by a biconvex lens The tube was filled with water and placed in contact with the eye Thomas Young (1801)

8. He postulated the fitting of a spherical glass on jelly over the corneal surface He was the first person to describe the concept of cosmetic lenses He is considered as the ‘father of contact lenses’ Sir John Herschel (1845)

9. He recommended the insertion of a ‘glass mask’ filling the fornices, in order to prevent formation of symblepharon The first suggested use of a therapeutic contact appliance William White Cooper (1859)

10. THE EMERGENCE OF CONTACT LENSES

11. Fick attempted to develop a contact lens corrective device He used blown glass shells as a contact lens material His initial work was with rabbits and then later on he trialled on humans Precorneal space filled with 2% glucose solution, in order to eliminate corneal clouding Adolf E Fick (1888)

12. He devised the first contact lens for keratoconus The treatment of keratoconus consisted of cauterization of the corneal cone with silver nitrate and instillation of miotics accompanied by the application of pressure dressings Eugene Kalt (1888)

13. He replaced the pressure dressings with a glass shell which had the same curvature as the cornea This resulted in a marked improvement in the visual acuity of patient

14. Muller suggested bringing the posterior surface of contact lens, similar in shape to the anterior surface of the cornea He stated that the capillary attraction of the lacrimal film would enable the lens to adhere to the cornea He also made an unsuccessful attempted to replicate the cornea shape by molding the eyes in vivo August Muller (1889)

15. Sulzer observed that corneal irregularity could be masked by filling the space between a scleral shell and cornea with liquid having the same refractive index as the cornea and aqueous humor This ‘fluid lens’ acted as an artificial refracting medium D E Sulzer (1892)

16. Dor used Fick’s scleral shell which were in popular use at that time He was the first to replaced the glucose solution used by Fick with normal saline Normal saline which had the same tonicity as the tears, greatly reduced the effects of corneal oedema Henry H Dor (1892)

17. Lohnstein developed ‘water spectacles’ which was filled with saline and worn successfully for 1- 1.5 hours at a time His contact device was also called a hydrodiascope Thomas Lohnstein (1896)

18. THE PIONEERING CONTACT LENS COMPANIES

19. Artificial eyes makers In 1887, they fitted a protective glass shell to the eye of a patient who had a partial lid removal Made lenses from blown glass Very regular curvature, no sharp edges at the cornea-scleral junction F A Muller and Sons (1887)

20. Generally better tolerated than lathe cut lenses They also designed a lens for ptosis correction

21. Zeiss lens was made of lathe cut lenses from molds Lathe cutting resulted in a better optical performance First commercially available trial lenses Complete trail set contained 21 lenses Lenses were afocal Fitting assessment was done using fluorescein and observation of bubble formation Carl Zeiss of Jena (1911)

22. He improved the Zeiss lens by enlarging the series of trial lenses, consisting of 3 diameters and 7 corneal radii Used a supplementary curve between the corneal and scleral components to fit the flatter peripheral cornea Leopold Heine (1930)

23. CONTACT LENS MATERIAL DEVELOPMENTS

24. The company developed a novel plastic from an acrylic resin base This soft and rubber like acrylic compound offered many advantages over glass as a contact lens material This methylacrylate was the forerunner of PMMA Rohm and Haas company introduced PMMA, called Plexiglass, in 1936 for the aviation industry Rohm and Haas company (1930)

25. PMMA was invented and patented by John Crawford and Rowland Hill at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) ICI produced PMMA under the trade-name ‘Perspex’ Crawford and hill of imperial chemical industries (1934)

26. PMMA rapidly become the material of choice for construction of corneo-scleral lenses Its advantages were: ⇨Low specific gravity ⇨Ease of manufacture PMMA for scleral contact lenses

27. The scientists contributing to the development of plastic scleral lenses are: ⇨William Feinbloom (1936) ⇨Ernest Mullen (1938) ⇨Theodore Obrig (1938) ⇨Istvan Gyorrfy (1938)

28. He design the first corneal contact lens made from PMMA But his application for patent was rejected on the following grounds: ⇨Many eyes present corneal surfaces of irregular curvature; keratometer measurements alone would not avail Dennis C England (1946)

29. ⇨Corneal clearance is ordinarily a prime requirement for a comfortable fit of a contact lens ⇨The objectives of such lenses are obviously met by the E. Kalt lenses

30. He conceived the idea of making corneal lenses from PMMA The first lens produced was approximately 11mm in diameter and 0.4 mm thick His lens was patented as the first corneal contact lens Kevin M Tuohy (1946)

31. He was the first to described and patent the concept of a multicurve design The flatter posterior peripheral curves approximated the non-spherical corneal shape and thus anticipate the modern concept of fitting rigid corneal contact lenses George H Butterfield (1950)

32. Hydrogel and Silicone contact lenses

33. They discovered a stable transparent gel, PHEMA, which is a water absorbing polymer(38.6%), permeable to nutrients and metabolites The PHEMA material which was mechanically unstable was successfully modified by using a xerogel that could be hydrated without affecting its physical properties Otto Wichterle and Drashoslav Lim (1954)

34. This resulted in HEMA contact lens processed by centrifugal molding (spin casting) and patent in 1961

35. National patent development corporation (NPDC) and Dr Robert Morrison brought spin casting patent right in 1964 Bausch and Lomb acquired license to manufacture spin cast lenses in 1966 US FDA classified soft contact lens as a ‘drug’ in 1968 Bausch and Lomb obtained FDA approval to market soft contact lens, Softlens in 1971 Soft contact lens development

36. Walter Becker had developed silicon elastomer contact lens and patent in year 1956 Joe Breger acquired the Becker patent in 1959 The Dow Corning Company acquired Breger’s technology in 1972 The Dow Corning Company also designed a new silicone elastomer lens, called Silsoft, to be worn as a daily wear lens for aphakia Bausch and Lomb acquired Dow corning silicon technology in 1985 Silicone Elastomer

37. He pioneered the concept of continuous wear or permanent wear contact lenses He theorized that an increase in water content and reduction in lens diameter would often give greater oxygen permeability This let him to develop ‘Permalens’ , a copolymer of HEMA, vinyl pyrrolidone and methacrylic acid with 71% water Permalens was manufacture and marketed in the UK by Global Vision Ltd. which was later acquired by CooperVision in 1981 John de Carle (1970)

38. Rigid Gas Permeable Contact Lenses

39. He made scleral shells from cellulose acetate butyrate(CAP) It was the first RGP lenses Poor optical quality J Teissler (1937)

40. Material used to manufacture RGP lenses was silicon acrylates Leonard Seidner, an Optometrist, has been named as the “father of RGP contact lenses” In 1977, Polymer Optics Inc. , corporate owner of Polycon (silicone acrylate) lens and Gaylord’s patent, sold rights to Syntex Ophthalmics Norman Gaylord and Leonard Seidner (1972)

41. They described a new RGP lens material (cellulose acetate butyrate – RX- 56) Produced a lens with high index of refraction Strong and resistant to high temperatures Its oxygen permeability which was higher than PMMA Manufacturing problems arising from its dimensional instability prevented the lens from being commercially viable Norman O Stahl, Leon A Reich and Edward Lvani (1974)

42. Disposable soft contact lenses

43. Developed collagen material contact lenses He is credited to conceived the concept of throw away or disposable lenses; now known as the disposable soft contact lens Distributed in a pack of six pairs His lens was made from a collagen material which later proved to be unstable and dissolved in some human tear enzymes Orlando A Battista (1978)

44. He introduced high water content hydrogel materials Developed ‘Danalens’ as the first commercially available disposable lens In 1984, the Dan disposable lens was purchased by Vistakon Manufacturing defects, costs, and packaging difficulties made marketing of disposable lenses impossible Michael Bay (1980)

45. Problem with the Danalens were resolved by using the FDA approved Etafilcon A material (58% water content) packaged in disposable ‘blister’ packs In 1987, the Danalens technology which was acquired by Vistakon, Johnson and Johnson evolved into the Acuvue lens

46. First develop and marketed by Vistakon, Johnson and Johnson Used the automated continuous-flow process technique ‘Acuvue’ by Vistakon, Johnson & Johnson and ‘Occasion’ by Bausch & Lomb were marketed as the daily disposable contact lenses in 1993 Daily Disposable Lenses (1994)

47. Modern day contact lenses

48. They are the advanced soft lenses that allow more oxygen to pass through the lens to the cornea than regular soft (hydrogel) contact lens Toyo contact lens company in 1979 patented and Kyoichi Tanaka was the principal inventor of silicon-hydrogel contact lenses Silicone-hydrogel contact lenses (2002)

49. Ortho-K is the fitting of specially designed gas permeable contact lenses that we wear overnight While we are asleep, the lenses gently reshape the front surface of the eye (cornea), so that we can see clearly the following day after we removing the lenses when wake up Overnight orthokeratology lens (2002)

50. George Jessen, ‘Created ’ what was probably the first ortho-k design in 1960, made from PMMA materials And was marketed as “Orthofocus” lenses

51. These design feature smaller and larger diameters and a wider range of curvatures and powers than conventional soft lenses for a more customized fit Custom-manufactured silicone hydrogel lenses (2010)

52. The IACLE Module 2, 1 st edition, Page No : 5-29 Contact lens primer by Monica Chaudhry, Page No : 1-2 http://www.piedmonteye.com/history-contact-lenses http://www.aao.org/eye-health/glasses-contacts/contact-lens-102 Reference