AS WE CONSIDER the future of contact lenses in this issue, it is also important to discuss how innovations in contact lenses are discovered and ultimately implemented as the standard of care in practice. It is the duty of practitioners to stay educated on new technologies that emerge in eye care, and there are numerous ways to ensure this happens. Taking the next step to put these advancements into practical use can be challenging, but patients deserve access to all available developments in eye care.
Resources are readily available to equip practitioners with the latest updates in contact lens care. Some of the most accessible options are publications, from monthly magazines and journals to daily newsletters. Many publications are available in a virtual format and they can be automatically sent to an email inbox on a regular basis.
For more interactive learners, there are also a multitude of webinars available online, including both archived recordings and live continuing education opportunities. Podcasts have also surged in popularity over the past several years, and there are multiple examples of contact lens-specific programs that can easily be accessed on a drive to or from work each day. Meetings dedicated to contact lens care and research can be invaluable experiences and provide additional insights.
Perhaps the most powerful method of keeping pace with advancements in eye care, though, is the regular practice of peer-to-peer networking. This can happen at conferences, local state society meetings, within a practice, or among friends. Practitioners have a wealth of knowledge to share, and by spreading the word about technological breakthroughs they help elevate the field of optometry as a whole.
Once new information has been obtained, practitioners have the option of watching and waiting or being early adopters of technology. When practices embrace the latest developments in optometry, patients are truly receiving the highest level of care.
One classic and relatable scenario is when a new soft contact lens emerges, and practitioners can easily educate patients about the advantages of the material and design. Other times, the emerging technology may be controversial or expensive, such as wavefront-guided optics, and practitioners may need additional training before rolling the service out to patients. At the end of the day, adhering to the principle of “do no harm” means that if a superior technology exists, practitioners have an obligation to offer it to patients or refer them to a colleague who has better access to it.
The past few decades of contact lens research have spotlighted myopia management (Lumb et al, 2023; Zhang et al, 2024), a refinement in scleral lens fitting (Rojas-Viñuela et al, 2022), an improvement in vision potential through wavefront-guided lenses (Gelles et al, 2025), and much more. Within the next few decades, researchers and practitioners will build on this foundation, and we are seeing a growing interest in practical topics, such as drug-delivering contact lenses (Rykowska et al, 2021), smart contact lenses (Kazanskiy et al, 2023; Liu et al, 2024), and artificial intelligence-based lens fitting (Krishnan et al, 2025), to name a few.
The future of optometry and contact lenses is promising. By staying at the forefront of leading-edge research and integrating advancements into practice, clinicians can provide patients with the highest standard of care.
References
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2. Zhang XJ, Zhang Y, Yip BHK, et al. Five-year clinical trial of the low-concentration atropine for myopia progression (LAMP) study: phase 4 report. Ophthalmology. 2024;131:1011-1020. doi: 10.1016/j.ophtha.2024.03.013
3. Rojas-Viñuela J, Frogozo MJ, Piñero DP. What we know about the scleral profile and its impact on contact lens fitting. Clin Exp Optom. 2022;106(6):591-604. doi: 10.1080/08164622.2022.2097858
4. Gelles JD, Su B, Kelly D, et al. Visual improvement with wavefront-guided scleral lenses for irregular corneal astigmatism. Eye Contact Lens. 2025;51(2):58-64. doi: 10.1097/ICL.0000000000001152
5. Rykowska I, Nowak I, Nowak R. Soft contact lenses as drug delivery systems: a review. Molecules. 2021 Sep;26(18):5577. doi: 10.3390/molecules26185577
6. Kazanskiy NL, Khonina SN, Butt MA. Smart contact lenses - a step towards non-invasive continuous eye health monitoring. Biosensors (Basel). 2023;13(10):933. doi: 10.3390/bios13100933
7. Liu X, Ye Y, Ge Y, et al. Smart contact lenses for healthcare monitoring and therapy. ACS Nano. 2024;18(9):6817-6844. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.3c12072
8. Krishnan A, Dutta A, Srivastava A, Konda N, Prakasam RK. Artificial intelligence in optometry: current and future perspectives. Clin Optom. 2025;17:83-114. doi: 10.2147/OPTO.S494911