Predicting time to refractive tability after dicontinuation of rigid contact len wear before refractive urgery

Thi wa a retropective tudy to determine the length of time required to reach refractive tability after dicontinuation of rigid contact len wear for purpoe of preoperative evaluation for refractive urgery. Patient were examined at 3-week interval after dicontinuation of rigid contact len wear, at which time viual acuity, ubjective refraction, and corneal topography were performed. tability wa defined 2 conecutive examination in which the refraction wa within ± 0.25 diopter (D) phere and 0.25 D cylinder with le than 25 degree of axi orientation. Thirty-one (56.4%) of 55 eye achieved tability by the econd viit, uggeting that tability had been achieved within 3 week of dicontinuation of len wear. Twenty-four (43.6%) eye required more than 2 viit to achieve tability, confirming intability till exited 3 week after dicontinuation of len wear. The number of year of contact len wa tatitically ignificantly correlated with the likelihood of requiring longer time to reach refractive tability (P = .05). No tatitically-ignificant between-group difference wa oberved in age, gender, refractive cylinder, topographic cylinder, difference between refractive and topographic cylinder, urface irregularity index, urface aymmetry index, or pherical equivalent at initial examination. The concluion wa that the length of time required to reach refractive tability after ceation of rigid contact len wear i highly variable, epecially for long-term wearer, and that the cutomary 3-week interval ued by many refractive urgeon doe not alway allow ufficient time to obtain accurate preoperative meaurement. —Michael D. Wagoner