Drug-Eluting Intraocular Lenses

Abstract

Notable advances in materials science and in surgical techniques make the management of cataract by replacement of the opaque crystalline with an intraocular lens (IOL), one of the most cost-effective interventions in current healthcare. The usefulness and safety of IOLs can be enhanced if they are endowed with the ability to load and to sustain drug release in the implantation site. Drug-eluting IOLs can prevent infections and untoward reactions of eye tissues (which lead to opacification) and also can act as drug depots for treatment of several other ocular pathologies. Such a myriad of therapeutic possibilities has prompted the design of drug-IOL combination products. Several approaches are under study, namely combination of the IOL with an insert in a single device, soaking in drug solutions, impregnation using supercritical fluids, coating with drug/polymer layers, and covalent grafting of the drug. The advantages/limitations of each technique are discussed in the present review on selected examples. Although more in vivo data are required, the information already available proves the interest of some approaches in ocular therapeutics.

Enhanced impregnation of hydrogel contact lenses with salicylic acid by addition of water in supercritical carbon dioxide

“…The amount of salicylic acid loaded in the 13 lenses also increases with the amount of water dissolved in supercritical CO 2 . A release 14 model using kinetic constant and exponent parameter was applied for modeling the 15 release profile of salicylic acid from the contact lenses. The release modeling suggested 16 that the release from the contact lenses was resulted from the superimposition of Fickian In this work, supercritical CO 2 impregnation with water was used for the 4 preparation of a hydrogel contact lens drug delivery system loading salicylic acid.…”

Chitosan/alginate based multilayers to control drug release from ophthalmic lens

“…The efforts made by many researchers in the last decades to optimize drug delivery through soft contact lenses (SCLs) have been described in several recent reviews [1][2][3]. In the case of cataracts which are, nowadays, one of the most frequent eye diseases, other devices have been investigated to prevent postoperative infectious complications after surgery, namely, therapeutic intraocular lenses (IOLs) [4][5][6].…”

Loading method for discrete drug depots on implant surfaces

“…drug eluting stents (DES) like the commercial CYPHER, TAXUS and ENDEAVOR [1] or intraocular lenses (IOL's) [2]. Especially drug eluting stents are in the focus of current investigations.…”