High-tech contact lens could help diagnose cancer

Chia-Yi Hou
·2 min read

Story at a glance

  • A team of researchers has developed a contact lens that can collect tear samples from the eyes.

  • In a laboratory setting, the lens detected compounds that could potentially indicate the presence of cancer.

  • The breakthrough could help with early diagnosis, an important factor in fighting cancer.

A team of researchers may have found a way to detect cancer through a pair of special contact lenses – a medical breakthrough that could help with early diagnosis.

In the U.S., there were more than 1.7 million new cancer cases reported in 2019, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The same year, nearly 600,000 people died from cancer. Early diagnosis could help patients get the treatment they need before the cancer progresses to a severe stage – and that could soon come in the form of contact lenses.

In a paper published in Advanced Functional Materials, scientists describe how they made a contact lens with built-in microchambers that collect tears and other fluids. The samples are then analyzed for exosomes, secreted by cells that can be indicators for diseases like cancer. If exosomes are present, they bind to specific antibodies embedded in the contact lens and turn the area red.

The team tested the lens in various liquid solutions, including cell cultures and human tears. They found that the lenses can consistently detect exosomes. The technology can also differentiate exosome surface proteins that are thought to be cancer biomarkers.

Exosomes can be found throughout the body, but other common tests like blood and saliva tests may contain components that could complicate detection. Other areas of cancer research focus on exosomes in blood samples, which may not necessarily be transferrable to studying exosomes in tears.

This high-tech contact lens could be a simpler way to look for exosomes related to cancer and other diseases. It has the potential to be faster and less invasive for patients.

“This is pretty exciting compared to the other current techniques in this field,” says study author Yangzhi Zhu, who is a biomedical engineer at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation, to Inverse.

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