[Effect of a decade of wearing contact lenses on the physiology and morphology of the eye].

A retrospective study of 230 HEMA eyes and 210 PMMA eyes with a history of regular contact lens wear (no extended wear) for 10 or more years was carried out on subjects with initially normal eyes. One hundred percent of the eyes showed pathologic changes although some of the pathology was of a minor nature. Irregular astigmatism was found in the majority of the PMMA eyes and 44.3% of the HEMA eyes. Pathologic corneal vascularization (greater than 1.5 mm) was found in over 40% of both groups; the HEMA lenses generally caused more and deeper vascularization. These and other observations indicate that when contact lenses, are worn for a decade or longer they may well influence the eye to a greater extent than is widely assumed.