August 2014

LONDON — Google announced on Tuesday a partnership with the European drug maker Novartis to develop a smart contact lens with the potential to monitor the wearer’s blood sugar levels.

The agreement is among recent moves into the health care sector by technology giants including Apple and Samsung as they develop devices and mobile applications to track people’s daily lives.

Novartis said that Alcon, its eye care unit, had struck a deal to license so-called smart lens technology from one of Google’s research divisions. Financial terms were not disclosed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/

Contamination of Daily Disposable Contacts When Re-Used

February 2013 — Do you ever store your daily disposable contacts in their packaging and then use them again the next day? If so, you’re risking an eye infection.

In a study, 20 people wore their daily disposables for one day, then stored them overnight in the original blister pack solution, covered with the original packaging foil.

The next morning they used new plastic forceps to transfer the lenses and solution to a new contact lens case, which was submitted to a lab. The participants did this on five occasions within a month.

The lab compared the 200 samples with a control group of new daily disposable contacts and packaging solution.

The lab found that 45.5 percent of the samples had growths in the solution, and 21.5 percent of these had Staphylococci, while 28 percent had gram negative rods. For 95 percent of the participants, at least one pair of contact lenses was contaminated, and for 35 percent, all samples were contaminated.

The study appeared in Optometry and Vision Science, volume 88, issue 12.