The vision of Purdue University biomedical engineer Chi Hwan Lee to develop specialized smart soft contact lenses that can accurately measure intraocular pressure (IOP) in a person’s eye could be the latest answer to stopping glaucoma-related blindness.
Lee, the Leslie A. Geddes Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering in Purdue’s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, led a research team that developed new ocular technology to continuously monitor patients’ IOP readings more comfortably and accurately.
The technology serves as another option for eye specialists to identify glaucoma, which, according to the Glaucoma Research Foundation, can steal a person’s vision without early warning signs or pain and affects more than 80 million people worldwide.
The only known modifiable risk factor is lowering a person’s IOP, which is difficult to monitor for long periods of time, particularly during sleep.
While exams can be performed in a specialist’s office and at-home monitoring systems are available, these all have their limitations. For instance, in-office measures are time-consuming, and current at-home technology is difficult to use, is uncomfortable and doesn’t gather sufficient data at the right time periods or over long enough time periods for specialists to appropriately use the information to make optimized treatment decisions.