Rating Contact Lenses

By Joseph T. Barr, O.D., M.S., Editor
Nov. 1997

Wine publications do it. Auto publications do it. Investment publications do it. And now, Contact Lens Spectrum will do it too -- with your help.

Over the next several months, we'll be asking for your candid comments about which contact lenses work best for you and why. (Watch upcoming issues for the survey that we'll ask you to either mail or fax back to us.)

Whether you only purchase and distribute contact lenses, prescribe them or wear them, we need your feedback. Tell us which spheres, torics, bifocals (both soft and RGP) provide the best vision, comfort and safety, and are the most efficient to fit and prescribe. You can rank them like wine where 100 is the best Cabernet Sauvignon on the planet (and tell us why -- and I don't mean because it has a great nose or great legs), or you can rank them like a car after a test drive (and tell us why -- and I don't mean because it has great ergonomics and you like the smell of the leather). A good response would be: "I like the SuperHyperBifoCon because of the patient's quick adaptation, crisp vision and durability. After having fit 10 patients, I've had only one failure due to lack of motivation. And in the two cases where the lenses were lost, reproducibility has been right on."

Conducting a survey like this is difficult, requiring a great deal of time and expense. But it's critical for our readers' success and is the basis for the safety and comfort of their patients. Oh sure, some of our advertisers will be upset with it in the short term, and we know there's a potential for abuses (which we will diligently try to avoid).

Some will say that instead of conducting an opinion poll we should sponsor a series of randomized, controlled, clinical trials incorporating all the elements of proper study design, including masking and sample size large enough to prove both statistical and clinical significance. In fact, we have been criticized in the past for publishing comparison studies, and many of those criticisms have had merit. But we intend to keep telling you about comparison study results because we believe, in fact we know, that you can separate the wheat from the chaff. I never underestimate the sophistication of our readership. We know you're the ones who make most of the contact lens decisions for most contact lens patients most of the time.

We will track your responses regarding your favorite lenses over the next months and report back to you in 1998 about what your colleagues say. CLS