Drug-Eluting Contact Lens can Lead to More Effective Treatment for Glaucoma

A team of American researchers has developed a drug-eluting contact lens that can provide prolonged delivery of latanoprost, a common drug used for the treatment of glaucoma, making a eye drop-free world another step closer to reality.

The study's lead author Joseph Ciolino from Massachusetts Eye and Ear said in general, eye drops are an inefficient method of drug delivery that has notoriously poor patient adherence. This contact lens design can potentially be used as a treatment for glaucoma and as a platform for other ocular drug delivery applications.

The contacts were designed with materials that are FDA-approved for use on the eye. The latanoprost-eluting contact lenses were created by encapsulating latanoprost-polymer films in commonly used contact lens hydrogel.

Professor Daniel Kohane, director of the Laboratory for Biomaterials and Drug Delivery at Boston Children's Hospital, said that drug they have developed is capable of delivering large amounts of drug at substantially constant rates over weeks to months.

The lenses appeared safe in cell culture and animal studies. This is the first contact lens that has been shown to release drugs for this long in animal models.

The newly designed contact lens has a clear central aperture and contains a drug-polymer film in the periphery, which helps to control drug release. The lenses can be made with no refractive power or with the ability to correct the refractive error in near sided or far sided eyes.

The study will be published in journal Biomaterials.

Source: ANI

Eye Pain Symptom Evaluation

Eye pain usually follows trauma, eye infection or inflammation of the eye and the surrounding structures. The cause of eye pain can be diagnosed based on the type of pain and associated symptoms.

Eye Redness

Redness of the eye occurs due to the dilation of the blood vessels of the eye. It can occur due to excessive straining or due to inflammation.

Astigmatism

Astigmatism is a refractive error of the eye, which causes blurred or distorted vision. Astigmatism is one of the most common vision problems.

Conjunctivitis

Conjunctivitis or Pink Eye causes redness and soreness of the conjunctiva and is responsible for 1% of all emergency visits to a hospital.

Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a group of disorders involving the optic nerve, often associated with a rise in intraocular pressure. Uncontrolled glaucoma can lead to blindness.

Hyperopia

Long sightedness also known as hyperopia or farsightedness is a common vision problem. Long-sighted people have difficulty seeing near objects than distant objects.

Keratoconus

Keratoconus is a bilateral condition affecting both the eyes. Usually one eye is more severely affected than the other. Both males and females are equally affected.