The Relation Between Toxigenic Bacteria Contaminate Soft Contact Lenses and its Light Permeability

Abstract

Contact lenses (CL) are an innovative solution to therapeutic reasons or for cosmetic. It has several advantages compared with glasses but it has been maligned on lenses that increase bacterial contamination which may cause eye redness, inflammation, ulceration of the cornea and edema in the conjunctiva which develops for faulty vision. More than 30 pairs of soft Polymacon lenses were collected randomly from volunteers. The lenses have been divided into six groups according to the intervals used (1, 5, 10 and 15 days). The total count of associated bacteria was 4, 11, 31, 46, 71, 136 CFU per ml, respectively. The BIOLOG was used to identify bacterial isolates. The most frequent bacterial isolates were Staphylococcus aureus, Achromobacter insolitus, Bordetella hinzii, Providencia rettgeri, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus subtillius and Enterobacter cloacae. The ability of some bacterial isolates to excrete enterotoxins was studied through using immunological tests with TECRA for Bacillus spp., Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. There was a significant direct relation between period of using contact lenses and number of associated bacteria and their toxicity. The light permeability was measured at several wavelengths 210, 560 and 590 nm and there was an inverse relation between the visible light permeability (% transmission) and period of using contact lenses meanwhile, there was no any effect on ultraviolet permeability at 210 nm. This study aim to focus on injures which may occur due to use the contact lenses for long time as well as the detect the relation between bacteria contamination for lenses, toxins production and light transmittance and some eyes allergic diseases.

Keywords

• cornea
• polymacon
• biolog
• tecra
• light permeability
• contact lenses