Voltage

Engineering

Biomedical engineering

Materials science

Resistor

Ophthalmology

Glaucoma

Telecommunications

Computer science

Mechanical engineering

Physics

Lens (geology)

Optics

Contact lens

Intraocular pressure

Medicine

Wireless

Pressure sensor

Electrical engineering

Nature Biomedical Engineering

Continuous detection of raised intraocular pressure (IOP) could benefit the monitoring of patients with glaucoma. Current contact lenses with embedded sensors for measuring IOP are rigid, bulky, partially block vision or are insufficiently sensitive. Here, we report the design and testing in volunteers of a soft and transparent contact lens for the quantitative monitoring of IOP in real time using a smartphone. The contact lens incorporates a strain sensor, a wireless antenna, capacitors, resistors, stretchable metal interconnects and an integrated circuit for wireless communication. In rabbits, the lens provided measurements that match those of a commercial tonometer. In ten human participants, the lens proved to be safe, and reliably provided accurate quantitative measurements of IOP without inducing inflammation. A soft and transparent contact lens can be used to wirelessly monitor intraocular pressure quantitatively in humans.

A soft and transparent contact lens for the wireless quantitative monitoring of intraocular pressure