Progress on contact lens for extended ophthalmic drug delivery

Abstract

Conventional eye treatment formulation such as eye drops has shortcomings including low drug utilization and poor patient compliance. The contact lens(CL), well-known as visual correction lens, is considered to be a more promising ophthalmic drug delivery vehicle owing to its good biocompatibility, long-term wearing comfort, prolonged drug residence time and improved bioavailability. In order to improve the drug loading efficiency and prolong the release time, researchers have developed a variety of strategies to modify traditional CL, including the introduction of vitamin E molecular barrier, application of molecular imprinting technology of CL, increasing interactions between the drug and polymer matrix by introducing special genes, and incorporation of nanocarriers or drug-loaded polymer films. In this paper, the preparation methods and pros and cons of drug-loaded CL are reviewed. At last, the existing problems and future developments of CL as ophthalmic drug delivery carrier are briefly discussed.

Keywords

• contact lens
• drug delivery
• sustained drug release
• vitamin e
• molecular imprinting technology
• nanoparticles