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. 2019 Jul;107(5):1662-1668.
doi: 10.1002/jbm.b.34259. Epub 2018 Oct 16.

Analysis of polyvinyl alcohol release from commercially available daily disposable contact lenses using an in vitro eye model

Chau-Minh Phan  1 , Hendrik Walther  1 , Donald Riederer  2 , Charis Lau  2 , Kathrine Osborn Lorenz  2 , Lakshman Nagapatnam Subbaraman  1 , Lyndon Jones  1
Affiliations

Analysis of polyvinyl alcohol release from commercially available daily disposable contact lenses using an in vitro eye model

Chau-Minh Phan et al. J Biomed Mater Res B Appl Biomater. 2019 Jul.

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to determine the release of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) from etafilcon A, omafilcon A, and nelfilcon A daily disposable hydrogel contact lenses using a novel in vitro model. PVA is an ocular lubricant that can be found in multiple formulations of artificial tears. Nelfilcon A innately contains PVA, so only the release of PVA from this lens was evaluated. Etafilcon A and omafilcon A lenses were incubated in a PBS solution containing PVA. The release of PVA was evaluated using a novel in vitro blink platform with Milli-Q water and PBS under various blink conditions and flow rates. Nelfilcon A lenses significantly released more PVA than other lenses at 0.5 and 1.5 h in both PBS and Milli-Q water (p < 0.001). For nelfilcon A, there was no statistical significance between the release profiles of PVA between the blink and no-blink conditions, or for the various flow rates (p > 0.05). All tested groups and lenses showed a burst release within the first 4.5 h and rapidly plateaued thereafter. The current study demonstrates that releasable PVA (whether through uptake or through being inherently available from the material) is loosely bound on hydrogel lenses, and the majority is released within 4.5 h. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater 107B: 1662-1668, 2019.

Keywords: PVA; contact lenses; polyvinyl alcohol; release; uptake.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors Riederer, Lau, and Lorenz are employees of J&J. Jones and Subbaraman have received research support or lectureship honoraria from the following companies: Advanced Vision Research, Alcon, Allergan, Contamac, CooperVision, Essilor, GL Chemtec, Inflamax Research, J&J Vision, Menicon, Nature's Way, Novartis, Ocular Dynamics, Oculus, Safilens, Santen, Shire, TearLab, TearScience. Jones is also a consultant and/or serves on an advisory board for Alcon, CooperVision, J&J Vision, Novartis and Ophtecs.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Features of the OcuFlow in vitro eye model: (A) corneal eyepiece and (B) lid housing the contact lens (C) lateral motion to simulate air exposure (D) rotational motion to generate frictional wear (E) Inlet for tear flow F 12‐well collecting plate.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A) etafilcon A, (B) omafilcon A, and (C) nelfilcon A in (D) 1 mL of iodine‐borate solution after 1 min. The green‐black color for nelfilcon A is indicative of the presence of PVA.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Release of PVA (μg/lens) from contact lenses in (A) PBS and (B) Milli‐Q water over 24 h (mean ± SD) n = 6.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Release of PVA (μg/lens) from nelfilcon A in PBS under different blink conditions and slower flow rate over 24 h.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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