Extended contact lens wear in the developing cynomolgus monkey eye. Recovery from adverse responses.

Soft extended wear contact lenses were designed for and fitted to 12 eyes of 11 infant semiwild cynomolgus monkeys. The lenses were satisfactorily worn over observation periods of up to 465 days, the longest continuous period of lens wear being 69 days. However, some of the corneas were subject to a pattern of complications analogous to that in human contact lens wear. Nine eyes showed adverse responses, and of these, the ocular complications were severe enough in four cases to cause abandonment of lens wear. The most remarkable feature of the complications was the rapid recovery of severe reactions to near normality in less than 24 h, indicating an impressive ability of the cornea to tolerate and survive insult. Another feature was the recurrent nature of mild complications in certain monkeys despite apparent resolution from previous episodes. There appeared to be no correlation between duration of lens wear and appearance of the first or recurrent episodes of corneal infiltration and vascularization.