Assessing neophyte response to daily disposable silicone hydrogel contact lenses: A randomised clinical trial investigation over one month

Abstract Objective This randomised clinical trial assessed the impact on symptoms, tear film dynamics and ocular surface integrity of daily disposable silicone‐hydrogel contact lenses (CLs) over a month, paying special attention to lid wiper epitheliopathy (LWE) and its implications for CL discomfort. Methods Neophyte CL wearers ( n  = 44, 21.09 ± 5.00 years old) were randomly assigned to either the experimental ( n  = 24) or control group ( n  = 20). Participants assigned to the experimental group were required to wear daily disposable CLs for 1 month for at least 8 h/day and 6 days/week. All participants were healthy subjects (no history of ocular surgery or active ocular disease) with spherical refractive errors between −8.00 and +5.00 D and cylindrical power <0.75 D. At the baseline and 1‐month sessions, the Dry Eye Questionnaire 5 (DEQ‐5) was completed, together with the measurement of tear film osmolarity with the TearLab osmometer, tear meniscus height (TMH) and lipid layer pattern (LLP) using a slit‐lamp with Tearscope Plus attached, fluorescein break‐up time (FBUT), maximum blink interval (MBI), corneal staining with fluorescein under cobalt blue light and LWE with lissamine green under slit lamp and halogen white light. Results At the baseline session, LWE showed a negative correlation with DEQ‐5 ( r  = −0.37, p  = 0.02). Significant differences in FBUT and LWE ( p  = 0.04) and a positive correlation between LWE and DEQ‐5 ( r  = 0.49, p  = 0.007) were observed at 1 month. Intrasession analysis at 1 month showed significant differences between the experimental and control groups in DEQ‐5, FBUT and LWE (all p  ≤ 0.02). Intersession analysis in the experimental group showed variations in DEQ‐5, FBUT and LWE (all p  ≤ 0.02) but no significant variation in the control group (all p  ≥ 0.11). Conclusion The presence of LWE was significantly correlated with higher symptom values in the DEQ‐5. Also, participants in the experimental group presented higher values of LWE after 1 month of CL wear, in comparison with the control group.