Investigation of the Alges bifocal.

A prospective study was undertaken to evaluate the success rate in fitting the Alges bifocal contact lens, and to determine which subject characteristics were associated with success. Fifty-eight presbyopic subjects with healthy eyes were included in the study. Thirteen subjects (22.4%) were screened out and discontinued after the fitting examination because of visual problems. Lenses were dispensed to 45 subjects (the dispensed group). Thirteen of these subjects were discontinued. Thirty-two subjects (71.1%) were considered successful after wearing their optimum lenses for 1 month. The successful group was interviewed by telephone after 3 months of wear. Two of these subjects were actually a "qualified" success. After 9 months, the successful group was again interviewed by telephone. Twenty-four subjects of the dispensed group were still considered to be optimally successful, five subjects were considered to be a "qualified" success and three subjects had discontinued lens wear. Our success rate for screened patients after 9 months was 64.4%. Two subject characteristics that were associated with success were a previous history of contact lens wear (p = 0.0065) and a near-point stereoacuity better than 100 s of arc with the Alges lens (p = 0.01).