Nanotechnology For Drug Delivery. Glaucoma Treatment
Nanotechnology has reached critical mass. Nowhere is this more evident than in medicine. Rising medical costs, demands for less-invasive procedures and pressures for immediate feedback of medical conditions, all point to nanotechnology as offering a new approach in healthcare.
When a person suffers from eye ailments today, nine times out of ten, he will be prescribed eye drops to treat his illness or relieve his discomfort. However, 95 percent of the medication administered in this manner flows to where it is not needed. Most eye medications are delivered by drops. The drops usually mix with tears and drain into the nasal cavity, where they can flow through the blood stream to other organs and cause serious side effects. In addition, dosage through eye drops is inconsistent and difficult to regulate, as most of the drugs are released in an initial burst of concentration.
To counter these problems, researchers have been studying the use of contact lenses to deliver eye medication.
One proposed method was to pre-soak the lenses in the drug solution, while another involved incorporating the drug solution in a hollow cavity made by bonding two separate pieces of lens material. However, neither of these methods proved very effective at delivering medication for extended periods of time.
The new technologies for making lenses involves mixing the drug with a pre-polymer liquid. This mix is then polymerised, creating a transparent contact lens material.
If the drug is water-soluble, it will be trapped within a network of tiny inter-connected, water-filled channels in the material. If it’s water-insoluble, it will be trapped within nano-spaces in the polymer matrix, and slowly leach out into the channels. In contact with fluid on the eyeball, these channels open up and release the drug.
By adapting the water content of the original mix, can be varied the size of the channels and so controlled the rate at which the drug is released.
Moreover, with changes to the size, concentration and structure of the polymeric nanoparticles within the lenses, the drug delivery rate can be controlled and remains effective over longer periods of time.
This new approach could be adapted to deliver glaucoma medication, as this eye disease is particularly hard to treat and existing medications have numerous side effects. The World Health Organization estimates that glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide. Glaucoma is a build-up of pressure in the eye. Experts believe that by 
using nano-technology, ophthalmologists can find innovative treatment methods for glaucoma.
Some researchers have designed contact lenses that can measure pressure within the eye and relay the data to a computer. It would allow to learn more about glaucoma and improve patient treatment.
Contact lens wearers with dry eyes may also benefit from this invention, as the material can be modified to produce self-lubricating contact lenses.
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Drops may cause stinging, burning, and redness in the eye.
Comment by Contact Lenses — October 13, 2009 @ 23:04