Straylight As The Result Of Refractive Correction

Abstract

Purpose

To investigate the effect of refractive correction on straylight.

Patients and methods

Straylight values were measured with the C-Quant (Oculus Optikgeräte, GmbH, Wetzlar, Germany) in 1) near-emmetropic eyes (n=30) with various negative powered refractive lenses and in 2) myopic eyes (n=30) corrected with prescribed eyeglasses and contact lenses. The straylight measurements in each group were compared in the different conditions.

Results

In the near-emmetropic group, a significant effect (p<0.001) of each added negative diopter was found to increase straylight values with 0.006 log-units. In the second group, no significant correlation with type of correcting lens was found on straylight values.

Conclusion

Refractive correction with high minus power (contact) lenses result in subtle increase of straylight values. These changes are relatively small and do not lead to visual disability in a clinical setting.

Keywords:

• straylight
• contact lenses
• eyeglasses
• glare
• light scatter
• refractive error

Acknowledgments

Our appreciation goes out to Dr R. Wolterbeek (Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands) and Dr R. Holman (VU Amsterdam, the Netherlands) for help with the statistical analysis. Also to Dr E.A. Hermans (VU Amsterdam, the Netherlands) for sharing his knowledge on accommodation, and Theo Blom for his help with spectacle magnification effects.

Disclosure

Dr van den Berg developed the method to assess straylight. This is licensed by the Royal Academy to Oculus for the C-Quant instrument. Dr van Rijn was supported by Opthec b.v., Stichting Blindenhulp, and by the ANVVB and LSBS foundations through UitZicht. The funding organisations provided unrestricted grants and had no role in the design or conduct of this research. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.