Eye implant designed to prevent glaucoma

Our eyes are very important and at the same time very"Fragile" organs. However, in addition to external damaging factors, there are also internal ones that can “imperceptibly” cause vision loss. One of these is intraocular pressure, which causes accumulation of fluid in the eye, damage to the optic nerve, which ultimately leads to blindness. This process is called glaucoma. And not so long ago, a group of scientists from the United States developed an implant to prevent this terrible condition.

Glaucoma is a very dangerous disease

How to stop glaucoma

Glaucoma patients are usually treated regularly.checking intraocular pressure in the ophthalmologist’s office. If it is established that it "jumps" and an excess of intraocular fluid is fixed, then measures are taken. If the process is at an early stage, then medically correct the pressure. If "everything is bad," then the patient is scheduled for surgery.

Interesting: An implant for HIV therapy has been developed. He supplies a person with medicines throughout the year.

Unfortunately, such checks are usuallyonly a few times a year, and any pressure fluctuations that occur between these visits are skipped. To this end, a team of specialists from the University of California recently developed an implant that is constantly in the eye, allowing patients to perform an intraocular pressure test on their own without special knowledge at home. The implant is called Injectsense and has dimensions of only 0.6 millimeters in thickness and 2.5 millimeters in length. In the illustration below you can see how tiny the implant is.

Surprisingly, such a tiny device can easily save a person from loss of vision

A miniature sized device is designed tointroduction into the middle part of the ciliary body, and the whole procedure should take about five minutes and does not require a long stay of the patient in the hospital, either before or after surgery. Now the device has passed the first laboratory tests, and scientists are preparing to conduct tests with the participation of human volunteers.

We plan to conduct our first research onpeople in early 2021, or even a little earlier, ”says Ariel Cao, one of the leading authors of Injectsense. After all the tests, we plan to enter the market in Europe, and in six months or a year in the United States.

In general, recently, scientists are increasinglythink about creating implants, so if you are interested in this topic - subscribe to our page in Yandex.Zen so as not to miss all the fun. As for the “internal device” of Injectsense, at the moment the implant pressure sensors are temporarily powered by transmitting a radio signal from a separate portable device.

Information aboutintraocular pressure. Ultimately, however, scientists are planning to create an integrated micro-battery. This battery will be charged wirelessly via a wearable device such as smart glasses. All collected data will go to the cloud service, and it will be possible to verify it using a special application. Also, the implant can be connected to a smartphone and other smart devices.