Is Binocular Contrast Sensitivity at Distance Compromised with Multifocal Soft Contact Lenses Used to Correct Presbyopia?

ABSTRACT: Purpose. The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether new experimental multifocal optical designs incorporating diffractive/refractive optics for correction of presbyopia in a soft contact lens would compromise binocular contrast sensitivity at distance while achieving 20/20 binocular visual acuity at near. Methods. Thirty presbyopic volunteers were fitted with Acuvue Bifocal soft lenses, two (FO1 and 3B1) experimental diffractive/refractive multifocal soft lenses separately and in combination as a pair and soft spherical lenses. Visual performance was evaluated via binocular contrast sensitivity and binocular distance high‐ and low‐contrast visual acuity after 1 week of lens wear. Results. The experimental lenses FO1 and the combination FO1/3B1 performed as well for binocular contrast sensitivity, binocular distance high‐contrast visual acuity, and binocular distance low‐contrast visual acuity as the habitual presbyopic correction and the spherical soft distance correction. A strong correlation (r = 0.73 and 0.53, respectively) was found between binocular contrast sensitivity and binocular distance low‐contrast visual acuity with experimental FO1 and FO1/3B1 lenses. However, the correlation (r = 0.37 and 0.60, respectively) between binocular contrast sensitivity and binocular distance high‐ and low‐contrast visual acuity with FO1 was weaker than that with the combination FO1/3B1 lenses. Subjective responses support the objective data. Discussion. The data show that experimental FO1 lens and the experimental combination of the FO1/3B1 lenses can be prescribed to not compromise distance binocular contrast sensitivity.