Visual Outcomes after Corneal Tear Repair in Children: RGP V/S Soft Contact Lenses

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the effects of the use of rigid gas permeable and soft contact lenses to improve the visual outcome after a repair of traumatic corneal wounds with or without surgical aphakia in the pediatric age group.Methods: A retrospective study has been carried out and analyzed over a period of five years for children under the age of 18 who are prescribed to undergo visual rehabilitation after visual loss.In this study, two groups of patients (n=15 eyes each) suffered traumatic full thickness corneal wounds.All cases were caused by sharp objects such as knives or glass, which caused full thickness corneal wounds with or without any other associated eye injury.One group was repaired and treated medically with a rigid gas-permeable contact lens that was fitted on the cornea (RGP CL group), and the other group was repaired and treated medically with a soft contact lens that was fitted on the cornea (SCL Group) which was compared with spectacle correction.Each patient was followed up until complete healing, the sutures were removed after about 6 weeks, and the patients were followed-up for a further 6 weeks, for a complete follow-up period of 3 months, after which postoperative refraction, manifest refractive spherical equivalent, uncorrected visual acuity, and best-corrected visual acuity with spectacles and contact lenses were measured and compared between the two groups.Results: After repair and follow-up, uncorrected visual acuity ≤0.1 (decimal visual acuity system) was achieved in 30 cases in the Corneal Tear Repair with and without Aphakia, Best-corrected visual acuity ≥0.2 was achieved with spectacles (P=0.018).Best-corrected visual acuity ≥0.6 was achieved in 15 eyes with the RGP contact lens group and ≥0.4 was achieved in 15 eyes with soft contact lens group which is statistically significant (P = 0.0047). Conclusion:After the healing of traumatic corneal injuries, RGP contact lenses offer a useful refractive treatment alternative in traumatized eyes of children.Eyes with high degrees of astigmatism were found to benefit the most.RGP contact lenses were found to be well tolerated in this population.