Smart contact lenses can provide a new paradigm in glaucoma as a promising alternative to conventional management methods with non-invasive, continuous IOP monitoring and on-demand drug delivery.
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| THERANOSTIC CONTACT LENS |
In particular, recent smart contact lenses based on strain gauges,
resonant, microfluidic, and optical systems have attracted great attention for
continuous IOP monitoring including Triggerfish which achieved Food and Drug
Administration approval in 2016 for the first time.
Here, we report a highly integrated theranostic smart contact lens
for both monitoring and control of IOP in glaucoma.
The theranostic smart contact lens comprises of a gold hollow
nanowire (AuHNW) based IOP sensor, a flexible drug delivery system (DDS),
wireless circuits, and a ultra-low power application-specific integrated circuit
(ASIC) chip.
The therapeutic effect of timolol released from the theranostic
smart contact lens was analyzed and compared with that of eye drop (0.5%
Timoptic) in glaucoma-induced rabbits. The right eyes of glaucoma rabbits were
treated by eye drop every day or timolol released from the smart contact lens
every other day for 2 weeks. The left eyes of glaucoma rabbits were treated
with PBS as a negative control.
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| THE LENS IN RABBIT EYE |
Retina histology revealed that the retina thickness was similar
with that of the normal in both treatment groups. However, the thickness of
retina was thin in the case of non-treatment groups. Especially, there were
significant differences in ganglion cell layers (GCL) with and without
treatment. Furthermore, the inner nuclear layers (INL) of non-treatment groups
were unstable and thinned compared to those of normal and treatment groups.
Upon the drug treatment with smart contact lens, the IOP decreased
quickly, maintained within the reduced IOP for 18 h, and returned to the
initial IOP level after 24 h.
Finally, the IOP level was controlled with the theranostic smart
contact lens by monitoring IOP and releasing timolol every other day for 5 days.
On the first day, because the IOP level was in the high IOP range
(above 22 mmHg), timolol was released out to reduce IOP and the IOP was reduced
below the normal range. On the third day, IOP was still above the normal range
and the released timolol could reduce the IOP level near the normal range. On
the final day, the IOP level was in the normal range and timolol was not
released out from the smart contact lens. All these results confirmed the
feasibility of the fully integrated theranostic smart contact lens.
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