A promising breakthrough in the fight against glaucoma blindness

by Rob Meijer | Aug 28, 2024 | Insights, Life sciences, Medical Devices

Glaucoma is a leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Academia, healthcare providers, start-ups and established medical device companies alike are striving to develop novel early detection methods and improved diagnostics and tracking tools. The imperative for progress is urgent – so I’m delighted to reveal a potentially significant Cambridge Consultants breakthrough for the monitoring of intraocular pressure (IOP), a major contributor to glaucoma.
It’s estimated that by 2040 22 million people will be blind from this progressive condition, as its worldwide prevalence is exacerbated by our growing and rapidly aging population. With such a serious impact on quality of life, it’s vital to combat glaucoma blindness through timely diagnosis and appropriate treatment. My colleagues and I see early diagnosis of glaucoma as a crucial area for progress – and one that’s certainly in keeping with our company ethos.

CC has a track record in developing deep tech innovation that creates new-to-the-world solutions with transformative business and societal impact. In ophthalmology, we’ve spent many years driving innovation by collaborating with leading clinicians, partnering with academic institutions and delivering cutting-edge client projects. We also regularly commit to our own internal technology investments.

Causes of glaucoma and early diagnosis

Which brings me back to the case in point. In glaucoma, the optical nerve becomes damaged where it exits the eye. This is typically caused by fluid buildup at the front of the eye, which leads to a sustained elevated intraocular pressure. To get insight into someone’s IOP situation is not a trivial matter. They go to the optician and get an instantaneous reading, but how representative is that of their ocular health?

A person’s IOP varies throughout the day. The fluctuations for a healthy patient cover a wide range and may stray into a perceived dangerously high value. Likewise, a person at risk from glaucoma blindness may have times during a 24-hour period that their reading doesn’t flag up as ‘at risk’. So how do we know how to interpret a reading taken at the optician’s office?

Clinicians searching for better ways of identifying an elevated IOP, or tracking an existing condition, are looking into ways of taking multiple measurements over the course of a 24-hour period in the convenient surroundings of the patient’s own space. Arguably, a system supplying continuous measurements provides the most refined insight – and a system that monitors simultaneously other aspects of ocular health has more added value.

How is CC striving to prevent glaucoma blindness?

A team of CC scientists and engineers have invented a contactless approach to monitor the IOP. Our platform technology would enable patients to track changes in IOP compared to a baseline reading provided by a practitioner. As the tracking is done in a user’s own space and time, a pattern can be identified. All the user strictly needs from the device is a signal. This would alert them to revisit the practitioner because the system has identified a change to the pattern. The device elements were successfully tested on the IOP behaviour of porcine eyes.

Contactless IOP measurement for continuous monitoring for glaucoma
As I made clear above, CC people like to help make the world a better place – and here we’re pleased to be doing our bit to prevent blindness from glaucoma. Next steps include a visit to ESCRS (European Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgeons) in Barcelona to spread the word and gauge response to our platform technology breakthrough.

And in terms of developing products for clients, we’d like to make the contactless approach available to a start-up, or a medical device company. It would be wonderful for the concept to be taken further and developed into a medical device system with huge commercial and societal potential. Reach out to me by email if you’d like to continue this conversation.

Expert authors

Senior Consultant, Techno-Commercial Group, Healthcare | View profile

Rob is a mechanical engineer with a background in biomechanics and medical device development. Since joining CC in 2017, Rob has worked almost exclusively on ophthalmic opportunities.

 

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