One of the main indicators of glaucoma is hypertension of the eye, which doctors watch for by calculating eye pressure. But these tests are often done during the day when the pressure in the eye increases the most at night.
This is why researchers at Columbia University (United States) tried to solve this problem using a smart lens that patients wear for 24 hours, including at night, and which registers the variations. pressure.
The researchers tested these lenses on 40 patients aged 40 and 89 who were undergoing treatment for open-angle glaucoma, the most common form of the disease. These lenses capture and analyze changes in the curvature of the eye, the curve being sensitive to eye pressure. They then send an electrical signal to a wireless device that instantly registers the pressure changes. After 24 hours of recording, the ophthalmologist just has to plug his USB key into this small box and analyze the results on his computer.
“These measurements told us which patients with glaucoma will see the disease worsen and those that are relatively stable, which cannot be done with a single eye pressure measurement at once “said Professor Gustavo De Moraes, associate professor of ophthalmology at Columbia University Medical Center and lead author of the study published in the journal Ophthalmology.
This contact lens is called Sensimed Triggerfish®. According to the author of the study, it has not yet received approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration, but is approved in Europe. Other contact lens systems for continuously measuring eye pressure are also in development.
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