OPHTHALMOLOGISTS ARE eye-balling a couple of techniques that may help drugs penetrate behind the cornea and sclera.
Two techniques described at a Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) Science Writers Seminar (in Bethesda, Md) may prove to be better ways to get more medication into the poorly-vascularized eye. What's more, the researchers say, their methods will reduce the side effects that patients often experience when treated with ophthalmic drugs.
Patients using topical ophthalmic drugs frequently don't get the therapeutic benefit they should and they often experience uncomfortable and/or dangerous side effects, says Thom J. Zimmerman, MD. According to the University of Louisville School of Medicine's professor of pharmacology and toxicology, the solution to both problems is more careful application of the medications.
Originally, says Zimmerman, who is also chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at Louisville, the idea was to have people press their index finger on the junction of the