IEEE Spectrum reports on a gold-ringed contact lens that monitors a patient's eye pressure day and night. The lens is made by Swiss company Sensimed, and it picks up slight changes in fluid pressure inside the eye and beams the data to a palm-size recorder. The lens has been approved for use in Europe and is being tried on about 100 glaucoma patients in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
Doctors hope that monitoring allows for proper drug usage or recommending surgery especially in a patient that is at risk of going blind. This device tracks internal eyeball pressure which is critical in managing those patients who are losing their eyesight despite treatment.
In the future, pharmaceutical companies could also use the system to evaluate the effectiveness of new medicines.