Contact lenses for infant aphakia.

We prospectively studied for three years the optical correction by contact lenses of 83 aphakic infants (141 eyes) who generally also had systemic and other ocular anomalies: 85% of the patients tolerated the lens wear for the whole study period. Complications occurred in 46 eyes and led to cessation of lens wear in two cases. Ten patients abandoned the lenses for other reasons. Thirty-four eyes needed subsequent intraocular surgery, mostly minor, and nine patients had strabismus surgery. Contact lenses are a versatile, safe, successful, and cost effective treatment for aphakia in infancy against which, before their widespread introduction for primary optical correction of infant aphakia, other methods of aphakic treatment need to be compared.