They pre-date all other contact lenses (CLs), with early versions fabricated in the late 19th century, but scleral lenses remain in the minority when it comes to lens use, despite excellent comfort and quality of vision when correctly fitted.

Their resurgence in popularity is linked to improvements in manufacturing accuracy, lens materials, reproducible designs, and better instrumentation for measuring the eye – for example, optical coherence tomography (OCT), which has improved our understanding of ocular shape and the factors required for a good fit (Jedlicka, 2016).