Contact Lenses Engaging the Ocular Microbiome to Prevent Inflammations of Cornea

Votes: 5
Views: 2729
Medical

These contact lenses featuring grooves in iris region, on back side of the lens, help to retain healthy state of corneal surface and so to prolong the contact lens wearing without irritation mainly in sensitive patients.

These lenses collect into grooves during wearing the corneal surface microbiome of user when the microbiome is healthy – when bacteria on ocular surface are in homeostatic state, i. e. the present bacteria species are balanced. After all day wear, user doesn´t clean these lenses with the standard solution, but stores the lenses dry in special clean box. User has several pairs of such lenses stored dry at a time and can wear them revolvingly - each pair another day, or just keeps them on stock. Before next use of the lens the user simply pours desinfected water without detergent onto lens and inputs it to eye. When the stain on lenses is uncomfortable, the user cleans lenses with standard cleaning solution or disposes them.

In case of corneal inflammation or irritation, i.e. when corneal microbiome isn´t homeostatic more and there is onset of pathogens which proliferate better at that time than bacteria species of healthy microbiome, the user uses the lenses from his/her stock, stored with dried healthy microbiome collected in grooves, to reach homeostatic state again, by adding on cornea the healthy microbiome from the grooves, collected previously when the eye was healthy. This way the user is still able to continue wearing contact lenses, however lenses worn in this case couldn´t be dry stored after wearing and kept on stock for next use and they must be cleaned up properly with standard solution to remove possible pathogens from the lenses´surface. After that they can collect the microbiome into grooves again, but only when the eye is healthy again (without inflammation or irritation). When on eye, the grooves are not visible thanks to tear liquid filling the grooves in.

Cleaning the contact lenses with standard solutions keeps the lenses in a good condition thanks to hydrogen peroxide or other detergent, but not so much the eye. Grooved contact lenses with described way of use aim to keep the corneal surface of user in a good condition with collecting and supplying healthy user´s corneal microbiome onto user´s cornea when needed. This „Self-Source Technology Medicine“ at contact lenses is the novelty.

Grooved contact lenses are made of standard rigid-gas-permeable (RGP) materials with method of CNC-latheing which is now standard method of production RGP contact lenses. The latheing process just has to be modified to cut the grooves into back surface of lens. After initial costs the production costs are supposed to be approximately the same as at current RGP contact lenses.

Also market is supposed to be the same as at current RGP lenses, or even bigger, because the user has several pairs of lenses at a time, possibly disposes the lenses more frequently regarding staining and also more people with sensitive ocular surface could be able to wear the contact lenses.

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Rastislav Ceresna
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Profession:
    Engineer/Designer
  • Number of times previously entering contest:
    2
  • Rastislav is inspired by:
    COVID-19, comfortable safeness, little things improving the living, effective use of resources, ecological challenges of today´s world, efficient water management, alternative production of electricity
  • Patent status:
    pending