A team of Florida researchers has created special contact lenses loaded with vitamin E that they say can help keep glaucoma medications against the eye, making the drugs more effective.

Anuj Chauhan, an associate professor in the department of chemical engineering at the University of Florida in Gainesville, led a recent study on the use of vitamin E-infused contact lenses. He says current eye drop treatments are inefficient.

"The problem is within about two to five minutes of putting drops in the eye, tears carry the drug away and it doesn't reach the targeted tissue," said Chauhan,

"Much of the medicine gets absorbed into the bloodstream, which carries it throughout the body where it could cause side effects. Only about one to five per cent of drugs in eye drops actually reach the cornea of the eye."

So Chauhan and his team developed an extended-release delivery system using vitamin E that is infused into contact lenses. The vitamin E molecules form what Chauhan describes as "transport barriers" that slow the release of glaucoma medication from the lens.

Chauhan tested the lenses on laboratory dogs and found that the lenses administered drugs up to 100 times longer than most commercial lenses.

In addition to treating glaucoma, the contacts could help other eye conditions, such as cataracts and dry eye. Chauhan says the vitamin does not affect the transparency of the lenses. And he says the lenses could be designed for continuous wear for up to a month.

Another advantage of the lenses would be the vitamin E itself, he said, which is a natural antioxidant and helps block UV radiation.

Chauhan and his colleagues presented their findings this week at the American Chemical Society annual meeting in San Francisco.

Glaucoma is an eye disease that damages the optic nerve, ultimately robbing a patient of sight. The disease accounts for about 10 per cent of all blindness in Canada, and the World Health Organization notes that it is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide.

While there is no cure for the disease, there are treatment to control it and prevent it from progressing -- if detected early. But once vision is lost, it cannot be restored.

The CNIB says only half of the 250,000 Canadians living with glaucoma even know they have it, because the rest are not going for regular eye exams.