New contact lens technology offers high-sensitivity, real-time intraocular pressure monitoring

Glaucoma is a number one explanation for blindness amongst people who find themselves unable to watch and handle their intraocular stress (IOP) each day. The present instruments for IOP measurement will not be transportable, handy, simply accessible, or able to steady (24/7) monitoring. These limitations in present IOP gadgets are a significant contributor to insufficient ocular well being administration in glaucoma sufferers. This mismanagement might end in extreme and irreparable issues for sufferers.

This drawback is especially regarding, contemplating that one of many components behind elevated IOP is age. As the worldwide inhabitants ages, such ocular problems are more likely to change into extra frequent, particularly in Japan, which faces one of many world’s most extreme population-aging crises. Subsequently, immediate and proactive efforts to deal with the present limitations of ocular well being monitoring are anticipated to profit the nation considerably over the long term.

In a latest breakthrough, a staff of researchers from Japan, led by Professor Takeo Miyake from the Graduate College of Info, Manufacturing and Techniques, Waseda College, Japan, and together with Te Xiao, Hanzhe Zhang, Taiki Takamatsu, and Assistant Professor Saman Azhari from Waseda College, together with Professor Kazuhiro Kimura and Assistant Professor Atsushige Ashimori from Yamaguchi College, Japan, has proposed an revolutionary design and integration of a skinny movie right into a contact lens, enabling customers to watch their IOP in actual time throughout on a regular basis use. Their novel findings have been made obtainable on-line and revealed within the journal npj Versatile Electronics on January 13, 2026.

On this research, the researchers fabricated a resistive sensor primarily based on a cracked PEDOT:PSS/PVA (PEDOT: Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene); PSS: Poly(styrenesulfonate); PVA: Polyvinyl alcohol) skinny movie that leverages a multilayer construction and the intrinsic properties of every layer to readily and successfully measure and monitor the IOP in actual time. They notably mixed the sensor with a 70 MHz double-loop gold antenna for high-precision and steady IOP measurement.

Furthermore, through the use of state-of-the-art parity-time-symmetric wi-fi know-how, the staff remarkably elevated the machine’s sensitivity by an element of 183, in comparison with standard wi-fi sensing techniques, making it appropriate for on a regular basis use by individuals who require IOP administration.

Moreover, each in vitro wi-fi IOP measurements of a porcine eye and in vivo wi-fi IOP measurements in rabbit eyes modified by way of microbead injection, obtained utilizing the fabricated sensor lens, confirmed a powerful linear correlation with corresponding measurements made utilizing a industrial tonometer.

This analysis demonstrates how revolutionary, outside-the-box considering facilitates the utilization of the properties of a well known materials akin to PEDOT:PSS by a couple of easy but revolutionary steps to sort out one of many key challenges in ocular well being monitoring. Professor Miyake factors out: “It’s usually very difficult to manufacture a tool on a contact lens because of the measurement limitations whereas sustaining consumer consolation. To handle these limitations, we used microfabrication to manufacture an IOP sensor that matches effectively on the contact lens whereas sustaining flexibility and consumer consolation. Furthermore, using parity-time symmetry permits for a lot larger sensitivity in wi-fi detection, making this work a significant step in direction of the way forward for each day, real-time ocular well being monitoring gadgets.”

“Total, our platform is promising for long-term, non-invasive IOP monitoring, thus making a big contribution to the early prognosis and remedy of glaucoma,” concludes Professor Miyake.