Tuohy Lens - 75 Years On

The Feb 2023 issue of Contact Lens and Anterior Eye features a review to mark the 75th anniversary of the introduction of the original corneal contact lens of Tuohy in 1948. Patients wearing Tuohy lenses were able to achieve a much longer wearing time compared to those wearing sealed scleral lenses since they eliminated corneal epithelial oedema, a frequent problem which necessitated removal of lenses after a few hours of wear due to cloudy vision. Only some of Tuohy lens wearers exhibited an adverse corneal response such as fluorescein staining after 12, or more, hours of wear. The clinical success of the Tuohy lens and the fact that its fitting procedure was simpler and quicker than that for scleral lenses encouraged optometrists to commence contact lens practice and to implement improvements in the design of the corneal lens.

In this episode BCLA commitee members, Fakhruddin and Karin, interview Dr Eef van der Worp about the contents of the paper. Eef is an educator and researcher. He runs his own research & education consultancy 'Eye-Contact-Lens' based in Amsterdam (NL). He is on the education committee for a number of international conferences, including the Global Specialty Lens Symposium (GSLS) in the US and the Dutch Contact Lens Conference (NCC) and Dutch Optometric Society meeting (OVN). He is a board member of the BCLA journal Contact Lens & Anterior Eye.