The level of improvement of visual acuity in high corneal astigmatism with rigid gas permeable contact lenses.

The aim of this study was to calculate the level of improvement of visual acuity comparing the best corrected visual acuity (VA) achieved with spectacles with the best corrected VA achieved with rigid gas permeable (RGP) contact lenses in patients with high, simple or compound corneal astigmatism (myopic, hypermetropic and mixed). The investigation of patients included auto-kerato-refractometry, manual keratometry, corneal topography and visual acuity with Snellen chart. The best corrected VA obtained with spectacles was compared with the best corrected VA obtained with RGP contact lenses in 72 patients (116 eyes). All patients showed a significant improvement in visual acuity with RGP lenses from one to seven lines compared to spectacles (p = 0.0001). Level of improvement in VA represented as the number of lines obtained was as follows: 74 percent of patients got two to four lines more in VA with RGP lenses compared to spectacles, and almost 10 percent of patients got five to seven lines. RGP contact lenses provide a significant improvement in VA compared to VA reached with spectacles in patients with high corneal astigmatism. The benefit in VA with RGP lenses is higher as the astigmatism is higher.