Study investigators have indicated that vitamin E-packed contact lens might salvage eyesight of scores of individuals affected with glaucoma.
Glaucoma is a group of diseases sharing a common effect – irreparable harm to the fine nerve fibers of the retina and optic nerve which is the widespread reason for eyesight failure and sightlessness. Glaucoma treatment usually entails administration of eye drops. However this form of glaucoma treatment is incapable of restoring harm which has already transpired. Eye drops could only save vision by averting any additional worsening.
The drawback of eye drops is that they need to be placed on a number of instances all through the day and the medicine washing away from eyes lessens its efficacy.
An announcement made during an American Chemical Society Conference unfurled novel eye lenses with gradual medicine release that holds them in proper position could considerably augment glaucoma treatment. The key to its efficacy is the usage of vitamin E in constructing the eye lens.
Vitamin E has been usually linked with anti-ageing features, creates a lattice within the lens that slackens the medicine release ensuring a lengthier stay in the eyes.
Investigator Dr. Anuj Chauhan from Univ. of Florida explicated that it in merely 2-5 minutes eye drops easily flow out from the eyes carrying and flushing out the drug along with it and thus fails in reaching the intended tissues. Moreover, absorption of vast amounts of the drug into the bloodstream is then conveyed all through the body which could lead to side-effects.
Animal-based studies have shown the vitamin E usage vastly raises the time span the medicines stay in the eyes prior to them being flushed away.
Dr. Chauhan stated that such vitamin make-up is similar to nano-bars. The medicine molecules fail to permeate vitamin E and have to make a circuitous passage. As nano-bars have size which is a couple of hundred times larger as compared to the medicine molecules, they get rerouted and have to take a lengthier course which augments the time period of medicine release from the eye lens.
These eye lenses would be evaluated on humans in the subsequent two years and has the additional advantage of safeguarding eyes from sun-induced harm.
Similar to usage of normal eye contacts, these lenses could be used for a month’s time duration and can additionally be packed with cataract-treating medicines and drugs for other eye disorders.
The conference held in California additionally shed light on a laser eye test which can spot the condition when harm is at its least. The thirty-minute lasting laser eye test is slated to be widely available in about 5 years.
In the interim, eye specialists advise all to undergo normal eye tests in two-yearly time intervals.
