JULY IS OFTEN TERMED “Dry Eye Month,” but did you know the origin of that? About three years ago, CLS interviewed then-president/CEO of the Sjögren’s Foundation, Steven Taylor (clspectrum.com/issues/2020/july-2020/industry-focus ). He shared with us that the Sjögren’s Foundation had spearheaded this campaign, having taken steps to have it codified in the U.S. Congressional Record in 2005.

So much has happened in the dry eye arena since 2005! We have new understandings of dry eye disease etiology and the various classifications or types of dry eye disease. We have new diagnostics. We have new therapeutics. We have tremendous opportunity to change patients’ lives.

One of the more significant developments since 2005 was the opportunity to use an old tool with a new twist to manage ocular surface disease—scleral lenses. With high-oxygen-permeable materials and new designs, scleral lenses were brought back to the forefront of specialty lens fitting and we have not looked back since. A quick search of PubMed for scleral lenses over time shows a nearly exponential increase in publications since 2010.

As you ease into the dog days of summer, we do hope you enjoy this dry eye-focused issue of Contact Lens Spectrum. Happy reading!

JASON J. NICHOLS, OD, MPH, PHD

Editor-in-Chief

CONTACT CLS

Please let us know how we’re doing! E-mail CLSpectrum@pentavisionmedia.com with your comments or article submissions.