Physiological Response of the Contralateral Cornea to Monocular Hydrogel Contact Lens Wear

Previous authors have suggested that monocular contact lens wear can induce changes in the contralateral eye. However, most of these contralateral responses have yet to be substantiated or satisfactorily explained. This paper reports a randomized, controlled, single-masked experiment in which corneal thickness, corneal oxygen consumption, and the endothelial bleb response were monitored for 3 hr in both eyes of eight unadapted subjects who wore thick hydrogel lenses on one eye only. No significant contralateral effect was observed in any of the parameters examined. These findings reaffirm the validity of using the contralateral eye as a control in experiments with hydrogel contact lenses.