Put lenses in your eyes!

Contact lenses with medications will replace eye drops
Copper newsA group of researchers from the Laboratory of Biomaterials and Drug Delivery at the Children's Hospital Boston, led by Daniel Kohane, have developed the first contact lenses capable of gradually releasing drugs, EurekAlert reports, citing a publication in the journal Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science.

The lenses, developed with the assistance of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, consist of two polymers already used in ophthalmology. The inner layer of the lens, which collapses when used, consists of polymolytic glycolic acid (PLGA), and the outer layer consists of polyhydroxyethylmethacrylate (pHEMA).

The release of the drug with new lenses can last up to one hundred days (the maximum allowed period of use of a contact lens in the United States is 30 days). During the tests, the lenses provided an effective concentration of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin throughout this period.

The researchers have completed laboratory studies and are conducting animal tests. In the near future, they intend to move on to testing their development on humans. In their opinion, "medicinal" contact lenses can replace the constant use of eye drops in conditions such as glaucoma and dry eye syndrome.

The lenses created in Boston are not the first development of this type, however, all previous options did not provide a sufficiently uniform intake of the drug into the eye. In the first few hours, the lenses isolated most of the drug, and the subsequent concentration of the substance did not reach therapeutic dosages.

Regular use of eye drops is an insufficiently effective way of administering medications. Due to blinking and secretion of tear fluid, from 1 to 7 percent of the drug gets into the eye.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru23.07.2009