Soft toric lenses

Astigmatism is a common refractive error found in a large percentage of patients who wear contact lenses. Since 1979, soft toric contact lenses have been available to correct for refractive astigmatism. Most of the original soft toric lenses had the correcting optical strength on the front surface, but more recently, soft toric lenses have been designed with the correcting optics on the back surface of the lens. Back-surface toric lenses provide much more stability, comfort, and increased visual acuity. There have been a number of research articles involving soft toric contact lenses that discuss various aspects of back-surface toric lenses and their advantages over front-surface toric lenses. These advantages are presented and discussed in this paper.