Bifocal Contact Lenses-Have They Finally Achieved Success?

Implications: The market for high-performing soft bifocal lenses is huge, and will continue to grow as the Baby Boomers age and their disposable income grows.

Analysis: The market is huge for multifocal lenses as the Baby Boomers reach their forties.  The problem in the past is that the soft bifocals available to us did not perform---in terms of vision---as well as we the doctors or more importantly, the patients desired.  The new generation of multifocal lenses has vastly improved in performance, and are getting easier to fit for the doctors.  When a successful, comfortable, silicone hydrogel multifocal contact lens hits the market, fits will really take off.  (The PureVision multifocal is quite uncomfortable to most patients.)

The market will be minimally effected, I feel, by multifocal IOL's for a few reasons:  Their performance still needs some improvement, the additional cost to the patient, and most importantly, once they have been implanted, it is generally not worth the risk to go back in and replace the IOL with another brand or style if the first one doesn't work as well as the patient would like.  With contacts, of course, we can simply refit the patient until they are successful.