Straylight As The Result Of Refractive Correction

Purpose: To investigate the effect of refractive correction on straylight.

Patients and methods: Straylight values were measured with the C-Quant (Oculus Optikgeräte, GmbH, Wetzlar, Germany) in 1) near-emmetropic eyes (n=30) with various negative powered refractive lenses and in 2) myopic eyes (n=30) corrected with prescribed eyeglasses and contact lenses. The straylight measurements in each group were compared in the different conditions.

Results: In the near-emmetropic group, a significant effect (p<0.001) of each added negative diopter was found to increase straylight values with 0.006 log-units. In the second group, no significant correlation with type of correcting lens was found on straylight values.

Conclusion: Refractive correction with high minus power (contact) lenses result in subtle increase of straylight values. These changes are relatively small and do not lead to visual disability in a clinical setting.