Extended and continuous wear lenses

![CDATA[The concept of extended wear (up to 1 week) or continuous wear (up to 1 month) holds considerable appeal for contact lens wearers because it brings them close to the world of the nonwearer. Being able to see clearly, all the time, without glasses and not needing to worry about contact lens cleaning and disinfection is a situation that would be attractive to many of those with refractive errors. Nevertheless, the numbers who currently adopt this modality arc relatively small. Across the globe in 2015 , only around 8% of all soft lens fits and 2% of RGP fits (excluding orthokeratology) were for extended wear (Morgan el al. 2016 ). Although this figure appears to have been reasonably stable for the last few years, there are considerable regional variations. In Lithuania, extended wear may account for as many as 2 5% of new fits, whereas it is seldom used in countries such as Germany, France or Japan. The reasons for these contrasting behaviours arc several (Efron et al. 2012), but divergence in practitioner attitudes and differing awareness of the potential risks are likely factors (Keay & Stapleton 2008).]]