Aberration change after scleral lens wear in eyes with pellucid marginal degenerations.

PURPOSE: To investigate the impact of scleral lenses (SLs) on higher-order aberrations (HOAs), corrected distance visual acuity (CDVA), and contrast sensitivity (CS) in pellucid marginal degeneration (PMD) eyes.

METHODS: SLs were fitted in 24 eyes diagnosed with PMD. CDVA, CS, and HOAs were measured at baseline and with the lens on the eye. The HOAs were measured using an i-Trace aberrometer.

RESULTS: A statistically significant improvement was noted in CDVA (P < 0.001) with BSS lenses (0.05 ± 0.04) compared to baseline (0.42 ± 0.06). Front surface eccentricity 1 (FSE1) lens provided the best CDVA in most of the eyes. The baseline CS of 1.24 ± 0.74 improved to 1.58 ± 0.48 with SL and reported a statistically significant improvement (P < 0.001) and a gain of 6 letters. The baseline higher order-root mean square (HO-RMS) was 0.89 ± 0.53 μm, which reduced to 0.38 ± 0.24 μm (P < 0.001), and RMS coma of 0.45 ± 0.29 μm improved to 0.20 ± 0.12 μm (P < 0.001). Though there was a marginal reduction from 0.04 ± 0.14 to 0.03 ± 0.07, RMS spherical aberration did not show any statistically significant difference (P = 0.37). RMS secondary astigmatism reduced from 0.17 ± 0.15 μm to 0.08 ± 0.12 μm (P = 0.007), and RMS trefoil reduced to 0.13 ± 0.09 μm from 0.64 ± 0.36 μm (P < 0.001) with SLs and showed statistically significant improvement.

CONCLUSION: SLs can be considered an effective option that corrects a significant amount of HOAs and enhances visual performances in PMD eyes.