A group of engineers from the University of Liverpool have helped to develop a new type of contact lens device, designed to improve the treatment and monitoring of glaucoma symptoms.
Following its inaugural clinical trial, the device was found to accurately monitor changes in pressure within the eye, whilst being comfortable enough to wear.
The University of Liverpool’s biomedical engineers worked in tandem with engineers from niche contact lens manufacturer, Ultravision, as well as Liverpool’s St Paul’s Eye Unit and Moorfields Eye Hospital in London to discover if there was a better way to monitor the symptoms of glaucoma – a condition which leads to irreversible blindness and affects over 500,000 people across the UK, costing the NHS over £1bn a year in eye health care.
Common treatments for glaucoma
Eye hospitals attempt to treat glaucoma by controlling intraocular pressure (IOP) to minimise eye damage and loss of vision. Presently, IOP is measured in glaucoma sufferers during biannual clinic visits, but this can often prove unreliable depending on a patient’s psychological and environmental factors, which can easily influence IOP.
The innovative contact lens device is manufactured using a soft silicone hydrogel material, making it comfortable to wear. The device is fitted with a pressure sensor which can pinpoint changes in IOP during a 24-hour window. The changes are reported wirelessly to an external controller to provide eye clinicians with the data they need to make the right glaucoma treatment decisions.
A positive small-scale trial
The first small-scale trial of the device involved a dozen volunteers at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital and Moorfields Eye Hospital. The volunteers had the device fitted in their eye for over 60 minutes, giving clinicians plenty of time to track readings and ensure the overall comfort of the contact lenses. The trial found that the device was able to accurately pinpoint and report on changes in IOP, with little or no discomfort to each patient.
Ahmed Elseikh, professor of Biometrical Mechanics at the University of Liverpool’s School of Engineering was cautiously optimistic regarding the outcome of the initial trial and was pleased to see the device was “comfortable for people to wear” whilst providing accurate “measurements of the IOP”.
Elseikh added that the device has an opportunity to “provide millions of sufferers of glaucoma with much-needed information, which will ensure that they are being treated correctly”.
In the era of contact lenses with no prescription, it’s important for everyone to try to keep their eyes as healthy as possible. In healthy eyes, the watery substance the eyeball is filled with, known as aqueous humour, flows continuously in and out of the eye. Glaucoma can develop when the aqueous humour is unable to drain properly from the eyeball, creating a build-up of fluid and pressure and increasing the risk of damage to the optic nerve.
Those who wear popular contact lenses that are either made for daily or monthly use must keep their lenses free from grit and dirt by using a multi-purpose cleaner solution to disinfect the lenses ready for use.
A study in 2016 found that contact lenses could also help administer medication into the eye to combat the symptoms of glaucoma. A report by the leading journal, Opthalmology, found that a new contact lens-based system, which incorporates a drug-polymer film to deliver medication slowly to the eyeball, could be effective.