Corneal vascularization due to corneal contact lenses: the clinical picture.

A 24-year-old male medical student was seen after wearing corneal lenses daily for two years without medical supervision. The upper cornea of each eye was vascularized by parallel vessels in the anterior stroma extending to the pupillary margin. The corneal vessels joined the episcleral vessels (Figure 1). There was no evidence of trachoma or other previous eye disease except a mild bilateral congenital ptosis that the patient and his friends were not conscious of. There were no unusual symptoms and the patient wore lenses daily from 7:30 A.M. to 11:00 P.M. He occasionally took short naps while wearing the lenses but routinely removed them when sleeping at night. The lenses resting across the upper limbic area were held in position by the upper lids and there was very little movement during blinking. They were 9.2 mm. in diameter with an optical zone of 8.0 mm. Keratometer readings were O.D. 7.5017.45, O.S. 7.30/7.45, and the base curves of the lenses were fitted on the flatter meridian. The refraction of the eyes was O.D. -8.50 sphere, O.S. -7.50 -1.00 x 165, and the vision in each eye corrected to 20/20. A mild myopic conus was present in each fundus. The patient stopped wearing the lenses, but the vessels were present in a slightly attenuated form when he was examined nine months later.