Contact lens wear and diabetes mellitus.

An estimated 30,000 diabetic patients in the United Kingdom currently wear contact lenses. Anecdotal clinical experience indicates that such patients have an increased risk of developing potentially sight-threatening ocular complications such as ulcerative keratitis. The corneal complications associated with diabetes, for example structural changes in the epithelial and endothelial cells, have led to some controversy regarding the suitability of contact lenses for diabetic patients. There have been few published studies documenting the ocular response of the diabetic eye to current generation contact lens materials. The purpose of this paper is to review the anterior eye manifestations of diabetes and to discuss how such changes could influence contact lens wear.