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American scientists from Purdue University have just developed a new ocular technology capable of monitoring intraocular pressure in a patient’s eye. A good way to monitor the appearance of glaucoma, an often underdiagnosed ocular pathology.
What if somewhat special lenses made it possible to monitor the intraocular pressure of the eye to anticipate the appearance of glaucoma? This is what scientists from Purdue University in the United States have imagined.
What is glaucoma?
Glaucoma is a pathology linked to too high intraocular pressure (IOP), which requires regular monitoring by an ophthalmologist, when it is known. Sometimes underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed, this disease causes progressive destruction of the optic nerve, which gradually leads to a narrowing of the patient’s field of vision and eventually leads to blindness. Around the world, 80 million people would be affected.
Improvement of an existing device
Chi Hwan Lee, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Purdue’s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, therefore led a research team to develop a new technology. Purpose: Continuously monitor intraocular pressure in a patient’s eye.
But the team did not start from scratch, because there is already a device for it. But these tonometers have the disadvantage of stiffening the contact lenses, which creates discomfort for the patient.
“To address this unmet need, we have developed a unique class of smart soft contact lenses built on various commercial brands of soft contact lenses for 24-hour continuous IOP monitoring, even while sleeping at home“explains Professor Lee.
Lenses that keep their characteristics
“Our smart soft contact lenses retain the lens’ inherent characteristics of potency, biocompatibility, softness, transparency, wettability, oxygen transmissibility and overnight wearability. Having all of these features at the same time is crucial to successfully translating smart soft contact lenses into glaucoma care.” adds Professor Lee. Features that have been missing until now on current portable eye tonometers.
Creation of a start-up with a view to their commercialization
A company called BVS Sight Inc. was launched to develop the technology. Soon, optometrists, ophthalmologists and especially patients will therefore be able to benefit from this new technological tool to detect glaucoma in its early stages and therefore avoid a potential risk of disability.