Color-Changing Contact Lenses Could Improve Surveillance of Eye Disease Treatments

Despite all the good that they do, eye drops and ointments have a major drawback: it's hard to tell how much of the medication actually gets to the eye. Now, in a study listed in Applied materials and interfaces ACS, scientists report having developed a contact lens that changes color as drugs are released. This visual indicator could help ophthalmologists and patients easily determine if these drugs are where they should be.

The eyes are adept at keeping things on the outside. When something adventures in or towards an eye, eyelids blink and tears begin to flow quickly to prevent infection and damage from foreign objects. These processes are usually helpful, but they can hinder the use of essential drugs. Studies suggest that less than 5% of the drugs in eye drops and ointments are absorbed and that much of the absorbed medication ends up in the bloodstream rather than in the eyes, causing side effects. Contact lenses can be a more effective way to deliver medications directly to the eye, but real-time monitoring of drug delivery remains a challenge. Dawei Deng and Zhouying Xie, therefore, sought to create a corneal lens that would deliver the drug that would change color as the drug becomes available in the eyes.

The researchers have fabricated a color-sensitive contact lens using a molecular imprint, a technique that creates molecular cavities in a polymer structure that matches the size and shape of a specific compound, such as a pigment. ;a drug. In laboratory experiments, molecular-finger contact lenses have been loaded with timolol, a drug used to treat glaucoma. Then the team exposed the lenses to a solution of artificial tears, which served as a substitute for the eye. When the drug was released contacts, the architecture of the molecules near the drug has changed, which also changed the color in the area of ​​the iris lenses. No dyes have been involved in the process, reducing possible side effects. The researchers were able to see this change at the naked eye and with a fiber optic spectrometer. They conclude that this new lens could control and indicate the prolonged release of many ophthalmic drugs.

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The authors are grateful to China's National Research and Development Program, the Jiangsu Provincial Natural Science Foundation, the National Foundation for Natural Sciences, the Fund for Basic Research for Central Universities and the New Talent Program. Ministry of Education Excellence of China.

The summary that accompanies this study is available here.

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