Around 20 patients were recruited to join the experiment. They were divided; those who wear contacts and those who do not. Then, they were subjected to an eye swab on different areas of their eyes.
“The eye has a normal community of bacteria, expected to confer resistance to invaders,” says senior author and associate professor Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, PhD from NYU. But, placing these lenses directly in the eyes shakes that balance.
Their findings revealed that the microbial flora of the eyes of those who wear contact lenses are comparable to the flora that we have on our skin, which contains three times of every lactobacillus, acinetobacter, methylobacterium, and pseudomonas present. They total to at least 5,245 strains and subtypes of bacteria.
Acinetobacter and pseudomonas are the critical strains that can cause serious inflammation cases. They are mostly found in soil and water. Researchers also observed that staphylococcus, which are very common in the skin, is not that abundant in the eyes.
This can be the touching involved when we put the contact lenses on, explained Dominguez-Bello or the lenses provide more of a home for skin bacteria than with what thrives in the eyes.
At the bottom line, the results do not depict good news for contact lens users, which are more than 71 million people worldwide. Too much of these bacteria can lead to serious infection like conjunctivitis, endophtalmitis, and keratitis, explained Dominguez-Bello.
“Despite being important in ophthalmology, the eye microbiome has been largely neglected and its functions remain unknown,” she added. Because of the small reach of the study, it would need more research to put up support for a public health guideline.
“Our research clearly shows that putting a foreign object such as a contact lens on the eye is not a neutral act,” said Dominguez-Bello.
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