The autumn season is here, and we are once again thrilled to bring you our annual GP and Custom Soft Lens issue of Contact Lens Spectrum. This issue is packed with practice pearls and trends related to specialty contact lenses, arguably the bedrock of the field of contact lenses.

As he has for years, our clinical features editor, Dr. Ed Bennett, summarizes the field of specialty contact lenses in the GP and Custom Soft Annual Report for 2021. As noted in Table 1 of the report, for many, if not most, specialty lens designs, practitioners today prefer to use empirical fitting methodologies. This speaks to the efficiencies in fitting modern specialty lens designs, made possible by advances in technologies used in the fitting process in addition to outstanding laboratory consultants. Another item of note from the report is that even though there is significant interest in scleral and orthokeratology lens technologies, corneal GP lenses still make up the majority of GP lens fits today. What also comes through loud and clear is the enthusiasm for custom soft lenses, whether for precision fitting of the ocular surface, myopia management, fitting challenging conditions (e.g., high astigmatism and presbyopia), or correcting higher-order aberrations. There is no doubt that custom soft lenses are uniquely positioned to fill gaps in our practices and to truly optimize soft lens fitting for our patients.

Please join us in celebrating GP and custom soft lenses with this, our annual issue on specialty contact lenses. We are sure that you will find this issue as special as we do.

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The goal of Contact Lens Spectrum is to provide you with timely and thought-provoking articles that will help you become a more successful contact lens practitioner. Please let us know how we’re doing! E-mail CLSpectrum@pentavisionmedia.com with your comments or article submissions.