Researchers develop spiky eye patch to treat eye diseases

Using an eye patch covered in tiny needles to treat eye diseases might be sound horrendous but scientists believe that this invention can change the way eye diseases are treated.

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University have created an eye patch that is covered in dissoluble microneedles and gently penetrates the front of the eye to slowly release medication, which can relieve everything from glaucoma to macular degeneration, reported Daily Mail.

Though the spiky eye patch might look similar to a bed of nails going right into the eye, researchers claim that it is indeed painless and as easy to use as putting in contact lenses. The scientists believe that the patch’s controlled drug release will make it more effective than the already existing eye drops, painful injections and tablets.

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The study published in journal Nature Communications read, “The flexible patch can be readily applied by gentle and brief thumb pressing on the ocular surface, which is as easy as wearing a disposable contact lens without causing discomfort or requiring high skills.”

As soon as the patch is in place, the fluid from the eye will begin to seep into the space between the microneedles. This helps to erode away the material that holds them in place and lead to the needles becoming embedded in the eye cornea.

Then, the outer layer surrounding the microneedles begins to dissolve and while doing so, it delivers an initial strong dose of medicine. Over the next few days, the needles continue to dissolve and more medication is released.

The eye patches were tested on mice suffering from an eye disease called corneal neovascularization (CNV), which causes loss of vision in up to 20% of sufferers. The mice were given only 1 microgram of an anti-blood vessel drug via the patch. The results showed that 90% of the affected area was healed.

For humans, scientists believe that a single 20 microgram dose would be enough to treat CNV, with no side effects since the drug is release gradually instead of one large dose at once. Also, in the mice experiment, scientists found no signs of pain. The insertion marks too cleared after a day, with no bleeding or inflammation in the rodents’ eyes.

Researchers claim that the patch will appeal to patients since it is easy to use, minimally invasive, more efficient than other solutions like eye drops, and suitable to use at home. For the future, the researchers believe this method can be used for treating eye diseases other than CNV too, as per Science Alert.