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

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.