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Abstract
Background Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world and the first leading cause of irreversible vision loss. Currently, the primary methodology of testing for the intraocular pressure (IOP) is during clinical office hours, which only provide a limited amount of information on the trends and fluctuations of the IOP. Therefore, a continuous monitoring system is required to properly determine the peaks of pressure and to negate any false results obtained by sparse, clinic hour testing. The objective of this study is to determine the ability of a newly designed contact lens with an embedded microchannel, to accurately measure the fluctuations in the IOP.
Methods Experimentation was completed on fresh enucleated porcine eyes. The contact lens was placed on the porcine eye and utilising a camera the fluid movement, within the microchannel in the contact lens, was recorded. A micro-pressure catheter, threaded into the centre of the vitreous chamber, recorded the true IOP and was compared with the displacement of the indicator fluid within the microchannel.
Results The contact lenses showed a consistent linear responsiveness to changes in IOP and robust to the effects of anatomical differences among eyes. The indicator fluid had an average fluid movement of 28 um/mm Hg between all the trials. Additionally, the devices showed the ability to measure both increases and decreases in IOP during cyclical fluctuations.
Conclusion The described inexpensive and non-invasive sensor is able to reliably monitor the IOP changes based on porcine eye model.
- glaucoma
- intraocular pressure
- micro-fluidics
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Footnotes
Contributors AC contributed to the redesign of the work, preformed the experimentation, analysis and contributed to the interpretation of the data. As well as contributed to the writing of the manuscript. SL contributed to the redesign of the concept and the experimentation working with the planar model of the design. GZ contributed to the analysis and framework of the planar analytical model used to interpret the deformation of the system. RJC (MD) contributed substantial revisions to the manuscript of the laboratory and provided necessary training for experimentation to be properly conducted. YL supervised the entire project, contributed to the initial concept design, the design of the experimental testing and interpretation of the data, and the revisions of the manuscript.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests There are patents on the contact lens concept, PN 20170280997, which Yongjun Lai, Kongying Xie and Robert J Campbell are co-inventors.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data are available upon request. All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.
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