Air Travel and Contact Lenses: A Laboratory Study

Abstract

The cabin of an inflight aircraft contains approximately 10% relative humidity (rh). To investigate the impact of this environment on eye comfort, an inflight humidity profile was simulated in a controlled laboratory setting. The experiment was replicated 3 times using a group of 4 subjects (2 males; 2 females) per test. Participants served in both control and experimental roles by wearing a hydrophilic contact lens on one eye and no lens on the other. Subjects provided evaluations of “eye comfort” for both eyes (contact and naked) at specified intervals during the 10 hour test. The results indicated that at 10% rh, there was no significant difference in eye comfort for either wearers or nonwearers of soft contact lenses. However, comfort decreased with the length of exposure (flight time), and for durations of six hours or longer a significant annoyance was reported.

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