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Purpose: The purpose was to evaluate if there are differences between tears of contact lens (CL) wearers of different materials detectable by measuring the hydrodynamic diameter of tear components through photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS).Methods: Tears of 59 CL wearers and tears of 39 non-wearers were collected by glass capillary. Wearers were divided into groups depending on the CL material: (i) hydrogels of II FDA group (H-II, 15 subjects), (ii) hydrogels of IV FDA group (H-IV, 13 subjects), (iii) silicone hydrogels (SH, 31 subjects). PCS analyses were performed at 25 °C on samples diluted with deionized water with tear concentration (10 ± 2)% V/W to obtain, for each subject, the average hydrodynamic diameter (dH,avg) of tear components by analyzing intensity fluctuations in time of scattered light.Results: Means of dH,avg calculated on each group were found, on increasing order, to be 256 nm (std dev 18 nm) for non-wearers, 297 nm (std dev 45 nm) for H-II, 360 nm (std dev 76 nm) for SH, and 391 nm (std dev 85 nm) for H-IV with statistical differences between each group of wearers compared to non-wearers and between groups of wearers except between SH and H-IV.Conclusions: PCS reveals the differences between tears of CL wearers of different materials, not only between tears of wearers and non-wearers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]