Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
Department of Ophthalmology, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
Biomed Microdevices. 2021 Mar 16;23(1):16. doi: 10.1007/s10544-021-00555-2.
Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness around the world. With its slow asymptomatic progression, there is an emphasis on early detection and frequent monitoring. A novel microfluidic contact lens has been established as a potential way to track the fluctuations of the intraocular pressure (IOP) which is a key indicator for diagnosing and monitoring glaucoma progression. The purpose of this article is to determine the effect of physiological variations of the eye on the performance of the microfluidic contact lens. Ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM) was used to measure the central corneal thickness (CCT) and radius of corneal curvature (RCC) for a series of 16 fresh enucleated porcine eyes. The effect of these corneal anatomic features on device performance was then assessed by systematically adjusting intraocular pressure from 10 to 34 mmHg and monitoring the device indicator response. The performance of the microfluidic contact lens was determined by finding the amount the indicator fluid shifted in position as a result of 1 mmHg IOP increase. The relationship between IOP and indicator fluid was found to be linear for all eyes. The slope of the indicator fluid movement as a result of the IOP was evaluated against the CCT and RCC of each porcine eye. This yielded low correlation coefficients, 0.057 for CCT and 0.024 for RCC, meaning that these physiological differences showed no systematic impact on the measurements made with the contact lens.
青光眼是全球范围内导致不可逆性失明的主要原因。由于其无症状的缓慢进展，强调了早期发现和频繁监测的重要性。一种新型微流控隐形眼镜已经被确立为一种潜在的方法，可以跟踪眼内压（IOP）的波动，这是诊断和监测青光眼进展的关键指标。本文的目的是确定眼睛的生理变化对微流控隐形眼镜性能的影响。超声生物显微镜（UBM）用于测量一系列 16 只新鲜猪眼的中央角膜厚度（CCT）和角膜曲率半径（RCC）。然后，通过系统地将眼内压从 10 调整到 34mmHg，并监测设备的指示响应，评估这些角膜解剖特征对设备性能的影响。微流控隐形眼镜的性能是通过测量指示液由于 1mmHg 的眼压增加而移动的位置来确定的。结果发现，所有眼睛的眼压与指示液之间呈线性关系。评估眼压引起的指示液运动的斜率与每只猪眼的 CCT 和 RCC 相对应。这导致了低相关系数，CCT 为 0.057，RCC 为 0.024，这意味着这些生理差异对隐形眼镜测量没有系统的影响。
