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  • Building a Better Eyedrop Delivery Device

    By Jean Shaw
    Selected by Henry D. Jampel, MD, MHS
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    Journal Highlights

    Ophthalmology Glaucoma, September/October 2021

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    Sanchez et al. set out to assess a novel eyedrop delivery device for glaucoma patients. They found that study participants preferred the device over traditional drops—and that its use led to greater success with drop delivery, decreased contact with the bottle tip, and fewer wasted eyedrops.

    For this study, the researchers eval­uated 50 glaucoma patients (100 eyes) who had reported having trouble with administering their eyedrops. The pa­tients were taught how to correctly ad­minister eyedrops with standard bottles and with the device, which consists of a silicone sleeve that rests on the bridge of the nose and holds an eyedrop bottle in a stable, secure position over the ocular surface.

    The researchers filmed the patients administering drops with standard bottles and the device both before and after their education sessions. Two masked graders reviewed the film and assessed accuracy of eyedrop placement, amount of bottle tip contact, and num­ber of eyedrops delivered. Primary suc­cess was defined as accurate placement and no contact; secondary success was defined as primary success with only a single drop dispensed. In addition, the patients completed a satisfaction survey and chose their preferred method of instilling drops.

    Of the 50 patients, 47 preferred the novel device over traditional drop de­livery. In addition, 49 of the 50 thought it was comfortable to use and stated that they would recommend it. Fewer eyes made contact with the bottle tip when using the novel device (10 eyes) than with standard bottles (33 eyes pri­or to and 25 eyes following training). The number of drops dispensed was lower with the device (1.7 ± 1.2) than with baseline traditional (2.2 ± 1.6; p = .017) and post-training traditional (2.4 ± 1.8; p = .006) bottles. Overall, use of the device led to greater primary and secondary success of drop delivery (86% and 54%, respectively) than did the baseline (66% and 28%, respective­ly) and post-training traditional (70% and 40%, respectively) approaches.

    The original article can be found here.