New Contact Lenses Can Help Patients with Glaucoma

A new contact lens designed to release drugs into the eyes may help people suffering from glaucoma, a recent study finds.

American researchers claim that this is the first time they have developed a lens which can secrete a regulated dose of latanoprost, a common type of drug for treating glaucoma. This study by the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and published in the journal Biomaterials has been regarded as a key step forward in the fight against the disease which affects approximately 480,000 people in the UK alone. Glaucoma is the world's leading cause of irreversible blindness. It occurs when the drainage tubes within the eye become blocked, thus preventing eye fluid from draining properly.

This condition can be treated using eye drops, laser treatment or surgery but as of now, none of these options are considered to be 100 percent effective. Dr. Joseph Ciolino, a cornea specialist said: "In general, eye drops are as inefficient method of drug deliver 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."

Series of tests found single contact lenses were able to achieve for a month, latanoprost concentrations in the eye fluid that are unlike those achieved with eye drops alone. This treatment can be combined into the contact lenses that patient are already using to primarily correct eyesight. Professor Daniel Kohane said: "The lens we have developed is capable of delivering large amounts of drug at substantially constant rates over weeks to months." Dr. Ciolino added: "they could help save millions from preventable blindness."