Abstract
A contact lens is an attractive tool for the delivery of ophthalmic drugs, but it has several issues such as the burst release of drugs and the limited drug loading capacity. To overcome these limitations, we developed a cholesterol-hyaluronate (C-HA) micelle-embedded contact lens for efficient hydrophobic drug loading and long-term controlled drug delivery. The contact lens was fabricated via photopolymerization of hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) using ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as a cross-linker. The C-HA micelle-loaded contact lens showed statistically significant improvement in wettability and mechanical strength, maintaining the optical transmittance. In vitro drug release tests revealed the controlled delivery of cyclosporine for more than 12 days. Furthermore, the Schirmer tear test, corneal fluorescein staining, and MMP9 fluorescein analysis confirmed its therapeutic effect on dry eye syndrome in disease model rabbits.
Highlights
Eye diseases are commonly treated by periodic eye drops of relevant drugs due to patient compliance
The hydrophobic drug cyclosporine used for dry eye syndrome was loaded in the C-HA micelles by the sonication and dialysis method
The formation of cyclosporine/C-HA micelles and the loading efficiency of cyclosporine within the C-HA micelles were analyzed by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
Summary
Eye diseases are commonly treated by periodic eye drops of relevant drugs due to patient compliance In this case, the drug delivery efficiency is reported to be less than 1% with signi cant drug loss.[1,2] In addition, the residence time of drugs delivered by eye drops is in the range of 1–3 min in the tear lm with low bioavailability.[3,4,5] To overcome these problems, drugs are delivered at a high concentration or injected at the target site, which reduces patient compliance and causes other side effects.[6] Contact lenses have been widely used for vision correction, eye protection, and aesthetic applications. Since contact lenses are directly placed on the cornea, they can be an ideal system for delivering drugs to the anterior chamber. Glaucoma drug delivery via contact lenses showed 10 times higher efficiency than that by eye drops.[7] In addition, drugs can be continuously delivered into the eye through a contact lens rather than being temporarily delivered by eye drops.[8]
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