Investigation of Releasing Therapeutic Solutions from Soft Contact Lens Surfaces Constructed by Nanoparticles

The eye has many barriers with specific anatomies that make it difficult to deliver drugs to targeted ocular tissues, and topical administration using eye drops or ointments usually needs multiple instillations to maintain the drugs’ therapeutic concentration because of their low bioavailability. A drug-eluting contact lens is one of the more promising platforms for controllable ocular drug delivery, and, among various manufacturing methods for drug-eluting contact lenses, incorporation of novel polymeric vehicles with versatile features makes it possible to deliver the drugs in a sustained and extended manner. Contact lenses for ophthalmic drug delivery have become very popular, due to their unique advantages like extended wear and more than 50% bioavailability. To achieve controlled and sustained drug delivery from contact lenses, researchers are working on various systems like polymeric nanoparticles, etc. This article reveals the recent achievements in the field of alternative drug delivery in ophthalmology to treat glaucoma combined with myopia. During in vitro experiments it was demonstrated that lossless and prolonged drug delivery is feasible if soft contact lenses of various materials are utilized as drug carriers. However, among two studied model solutions, only one of them passed all drug release tests with all five types soft contact lenses materials.