Nick Dash, Director of Loughborough university’s Visual Edge Optometric Practice in the UK – which specialises in sports vision, refractive surgery, and contact lens fitting – believes that many astigmatic patients are issing out on an opportunity to improve their visual performance because of historical difficulties with first-generation torics and the myths surrounding toric lenses subsequently created. Although 45% of all contact lens wearers have a 0.75 cylinder or more, only a quarter of soft lens wearers in Europe are prescribed lenses specifically designed for astigmats. This prescribing practice has improved dramatically in recent years, however, these figures reveal that many eye care professionals (ECPs) still choose to ‘mask’ the astigmatism with SVS lenses instead of correcting the underlying problem using torics.
Bausch+Lomb 2009
