The New Year is upon us, and it is certainly exciting to look forward to 2022 and all that it has in store for us. While there is no doubt that we look forward to leaving many things from 2021 behind—mostly the COVID-19 pandemic and humblebraggers—we are excited to celebrate a few things from last year. This includes both our annual Contact Lens Event of the Year and Product of the Year, the latter of which we instituted more recently to celebrate a “specific contact lens care solution, design, device, or concept” that warrants special recognition. To help in the process, we solicited nominations for both the Event and Product of the Year from our readership, contributing editors, and key opinion leaders in the field.

As always, we received numerous nominations for specific events and products, and we wish that we could celebrate all of these events and technologies. For instance, we have seen new therapeutics introduced into markets across the planet that can help practitioners manage myopia, fight presbyopia, and combat ocular allergy and dry eye. For our second annual Product of the Year, we are tremendously excited to congratulate Lentechs for its Apioc contact lens technology. Please see the Annual Report (pages 22-29) to find out more about this exciting new lens.

The Contact Lens Event of the Year is something that we have celebrated for the past three decades and that recognizes something so important, pivotal, or remarkable that we wish to acknowledge and celebrate it as such. For example, we have been resilient and diligent in our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, continuing to provide eye care without missing a beat. And, quite selfishly, we note that Contact Lens Spectrum celebrated its 35th anniversary in 2021; we are both proud and thankful to be your first line of information on everything contact lenses for all of these years. However, one event stands out from the rest of the pack such that we consider it to be the Contact Lens Event of 2021—the 50th anniversary of the soft contact lens. Indeed, Bausch + Lomb introduced the soft (hydrogel) lens in 1971, and what a remarkable 50 years it has been. Over that time, we have seen such growth in the contact lens industry, with amazing new materials and designs every year. Additionally, we are thankful that we can provide such amazing hydrogel (and now silicone hydrogel) technologies to our patients.

We at Contact Lens Spectrum are quite enthusiastic for what 2022 will bring. We wish to thank all of our readers, sponsors, patients, and colleagues as we celebrate this new year!

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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.