First cause of absolute blindness in the world, the glaucoma is a serious eye disease that affects more than one million people in France. This disease is insidious, because it is symptomless until an advanced stage and only early management and the implementation of appropriate treatment can prevent excessive loss of visual field that would lead to blindness.
For the moment it is not possible to cure glaucoma but the existing treatments try to stabilize the disease and slow the deterioration of the eye by lowering intraocular pressure. May decent research has led to the development of a smart contact lens that can detect changes in eye pressure and deliver medication only when needed. “The wireless intraocular pressure detection module can ultra-sensitively detect intraocular pressure fluctuations, and a drug delivery module uses a wireless energy transfer circuit to trigger the delivery of an anti-glaucoma drug in an aqueous chamber by iontophoresis” explain the researchers from the University of Guangzhou, China.
There are also lenses to follow the disease
One of the main indicators of glaucoma is high blood pressure in the eye, which doctors monitor by measuring the pressure in the eye. But these tests are often carried out during the day when it is at night that the pressure of the eye increases the most strongly. Researchers at Columbia University in the US have solved this problem using a smart lens that patients undergoing treatment for open-angle glaucoma (the most common form of the disease) wear for 24 hours in a row and which records the pressure variations.
This contact lens, called Sensimed Triggerfish®, captures and analyzes changes in the curvature of the eye, the curve being sensitive to ocular pressure. They then send an electrical signal to a wireless device that instantly records the pressure variations. After 24 hours of recording, the ophthalmologist only has to analyze the results on his computer to check if the disease remains stable or if it progresses to blindness.
Sources:
- Intelligent wireless theranostic contact lens for electrical sensing and regulation of intraocular pressureNature communications, May 2022
- Visual Field Change and 24-Hour IOP-Related Profile with a Contact Lens Sensor in Treated Glaucoma PatientsOphthalmology, January 2016
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