Essilor has begun a campaign to educate eye health professionals about the damage to eyes caused by reflected UV light, as part of its release of a new lens product that promises the best UV protection on the market.
UV light is extremely harmful to the eyes, accelerating eye aging and the appearance of cataracts.
While most UV lenses cut between 95 – 100 per cent of UV passing through the front of the lens, Essilor claims that UV coming from the back and sides, and reflected into the eye, accounts for between 10 – 50 per cent of total exposure.
“Whenever you see the claim ‘100 per cent UV protection’, this relates to transmission only… for full UVR (ultraviolet radiation) blocking, the lens needs to block UVR transmitted through the lens and UVR reflected off the back surface,” Essilor said at an evening lecture, held over dinner in Sydney’s Sheraton on the Park hotel.
The majority of UV exposure to the eyes comes when the sun is low to the horizon
Essilor’s new Crizal Forte UV lens, which has a differentiated anti-reflective coating on the back and front of the lens’ surfaces, virtually eliminates UV reflection into the eyes, while maintaining premium lens transparency.
Essilor has adopted a ‘sun protection factor’ inspired by sunscreen to rate its product. The Crizal Forte UV lens carries an E-SPF factor of 25, which means it protects the eyes 25 times more than if there was no lens at all.
The Crizal Forte UV lens is available in clear and transitions lenses.
Danger Times
Essilor Professional Services Manager Helen Venturato told the gathering that research published in 2011 demonstrated that the times when UV damaged skin, and when it damaged eyes, was different.
She said patients need to be educated that skin protection and staying out of the sun between 10am and 2pm was “not the end of the story”.
“The majority of UV exposure to the eyes comes when the sun is low to the horizon,” Ms. Venturato said.
“A greater proportion of UV radiation reaches the eyes from scattered light, from clouds and from reflected surfaces,” she said.
She said standard antireflection lenses stop reflections within the visible part of the spectrum only. One premium lens reflects about 40 per cent of UV back into the eye, while Crizal Forte UV reduces this level down to four per cent, Ms. Venturato said.
