Therapeutic applications of contact lens-based drug delivery systems in ophthalmic diseases

Abstract

Traditional ophthalmic drugs, such as eye drops, gels and ointments, are accompanied by many problems, including low bioavailability and potential drug side effects. Innovative ophthalmic drug delivery systems have been proposed to overcome the limitations associated with traditional formulations. Recently, contact lens-based drug delivery systems have gained popularity owing to their advantages of sustained drug delivery, prolonged drug retention, improved bioavailability, and few drug side effects. Various methods have been successfully applied to drug-loaded contact lenses and prolonged the drug release time, such as chemical crosslinking, material embedding, molecular imprinting, colloidal nanoparticles, vitamin E modification, drug polymer film/coating, ion ligand polymerization systems, and supercritical fluid technology. Contact lens-based drug delivery systems play an important role in the treatment of multifarious ophthalmic diseases. This review discusses the latest developments in drug-loaded contact lenses for the treatment of ophthalmic diseases, including preparation methods, application in ophthalmic diseases and future prospects.

Keywords:

• Drug delivery
• contact lens
• ophthalmic diseases
• polymer material

Authors’ contributions

Lianghui Zhao: sorting out the references and writing original draft; Jike Song: drawing the figure and tables; Yongle Du and Cong Ren: consulting and sorting out the references; Bin Guo and Hongsheng Bi: conceiving and revising the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript, and that all authors agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Project (2019YFC1710200), the Focus on Research and Development Plan in Shandong Province (2021LCZX09), and the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2021LZY045 and ZR2020MH393). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, the decision to publish, or the preparation of the manuscript.