January 13th 2012- Contact lenses, a Class II medical device, are already used by millions of Americans to see. However, exciting news from the University of Washington shows that maybe, in the relatively near future, they may be able to monitor health. “Smart Lenses,” a new generation of lenses, are specially designed with wireless technology, circuitry, and sensors, that may effectively monitor blood and important biomarkers found within blood such as cholesterol, glucose, potassium, and sodium, all of which are commonly found on the surface of the eye. There is a lot of promise and exciting ideas surrounding these news lenses, such as continuous diabetic blood sugar monitoring for example; however, that kind of function is years away as the lens has not even been tested in humans yet.
The hope is that, the smart lens could one day be intertwined with smart phones and other technology to not only monitor, but treat eye disease as well based on drug delivery through the lens, and looking at how the eye has changed over the course of time, right from a person’s cell phone.
Article By: Antonio Chirumbolo SUNY 2013
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