Corneal deswelling following overnight wear of rigid and hydrogel contact lenses.

The edema response over a 24-hour sleep/wake cycle of ten subjects wearing a rigid gas-permeable (RGP) lens in one eye and a hydrogel lens in the other was evaluated. Lenses that result in equivalent amounts of overnight edema were selected. There was no significant difference in the rates of deswelling during the initial hour. However, at three and five hours after eye opening, the amount of residual edema was greater in the eye wearing the hydrogel lens. We suggest that when an RGP lens provides the same closed-eye level of oxygen as a hydrogel lens, the greater tear exchange of the RGP lens will result in a greater open-eye oxygen supply, leading to less daytime edema. This suggests that the more complete deswelling we observed with RGP lenses can be attributed to a lower stimulus to open-eye swelling. Biomicroscopy, subjective vision, and patient comfort were also rated on waking and ten hours after eye opening. On eye opening there was significantly more back-surface debris (P = 0.01) with the RGP lenses. Patients wearing RGPs rated comfort as poorer and vision as better but only the latter attained statistical significance.