Effects of eye rotation and contact lens decentration on horizontal peripheral refraction

Peripheral refraction is important in design of myopia control therapies. The aim was to investigate the influence of contact lens decentration associated with eye rotation on peripheral refraction in the horizontal visual field.

Participants were 10 emmetropes and 10 myopes in good general and ocular health. Right eyes underwent cycloplegic peripheral refraction, using a Grand-Seiko WAM-5500 Autorefractor, in 5° steps to ±35° eccentricities along the horizontal visual field. Targets were fixated using eye rotation only or head rotation only. Refractions were measured without correction and with three types of contact lenses: single vision, a multifocal centre-distance aspheric with +2.50 D add and NaturalVue aspheric. Photographs of eyes during lens wear were taken for each eye rotation. Effects of visual field angle, lens type and test method (head or eye rotation) on vector components of relative peripheral refraction were evaluated using repeated measures anovas. Test method for each visual field angle/lens combination were compared via paired t-tests.

Horizontal decentration ranges across the visual field were 1.2 ± 0.6 mm for single vision and 1.2 ± 0.4 mm for multifocal lenses but smaller at 0.7 ± 0.4 mm for NaturalVue lenses. There were only two significant effects of test method across the visual field angle/lens type combinations (single vision: for emmetropes horizontal/vertical astigmatism component at 35° nasal with mean difference -0.38 D and for myopes spherical equivalent refraction at 20° temporal with mean difference +0.24 D).

Upon eye rotation the contact lenses decentred on the eye, but not enough to affect peripheral refraction. For the types assessed and for the horizontal visual field out to ±35° when measurements were performed with the Grand-Seiko WAM-5500 autorefractor, it is valid to use eye rotations to investigate peripheral refraction.