Comparative clinical evaluation of rub vs. no rub lens care regimens for a silicone hydrogel soft contact lens

Purpose. Although no-rub cleaning regimens have proven effective with traditional HEMA based lenses, there has been little reported on the impact of deleting the rubbing step for silicone hydrogel lenses. This study investigated the impact of a rub vs. no-rub cleaning regimen on the comfort of a silicone hydrogel contact lens. Methods. Sixteen subjects wore 0 20ptix silicone hydrogel contact lenses (CIBA Vision, Duluth, GA) on a daily wear schedule for two consecutive two week periods. The study was a subject-blind cross-over study in which the subjects were told they would be comparing the comfort of two different silicone hydrogel lenses. They were instructed to rub and rinse the lenses for 2 weeks and rinse without rubbing the lenses for the other 2 weeks using OPTI-FREE! RepleniSH™ (Alcon, Fort Worth, Texas) cleaning solution. Subjective comfort and symptoms were assessed after 2 weeks with each cleaning regimen. Results: Mean comfortable wearing time for the rubbed lenses (R) was 10 hours (95% CI 7.9, 12.0) compared to the non-rubbed (NR) at 8.35 hours (95% Cl6.1, 10.6). P = 0.1064. Comfort as recorded on a visual analogue scale had a mean of75.1 for the Rand 66.4 for the NR. P = 0.3708. The R group scored higher for overall comfort, end of day comfort and dryness. Forced choice results indicated that subjects preferred the R regimen over the NR. P = 0.0847. There were no differences in slit lamp examination findings. Conclusions: A cleaning regimen consisting of a 10 second rub showed a trend towards improved comfort and wear time in a pilot study of silicone hydrogel lens wearers. Practitioners may wish to consider this when prescribing lens care for these patients, however, further research with a larger sample size would be warranted to confirm the results of this study