Eyeworld

EW NEWS & OPINION 26 July 2017 by Liz Hillman EyeWorld Staff Writer technology, is designed to be sent home with patients for several days to collect IOP data outside of office hours. The device received the CE mark a few years ago in 2014. The goal of this device, Holly Swain, OD, product manager, Icare USA, said is to provide doctors with more information to help them make better decisions for their glau- coma patients and suspects. "We think that [patients who will benefit from this device] are glaucoma patients who doctors are losing sleep over because they're not sure what's going on. They come New IOP monitoring devices and some of the latest research A t-home IOP monitoring continues to progress with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) giving approval to a new device in March. Icare HOME (Icare USA, Raleigh, North Carolina), part of the Finish parent company's (Icare Finland) suite of handheld IOP measurement devices that use patented rebound The latest in at-home IOP monitoring into the office, their pressures are normal but they're showing pro- gression," Dr. Swain said. "Another [candidate for this device] would be a glaucoma suspect. They have risk factors, [but the physician is] not sure if they want to start that patient on a drop, and this may give them more information on 'I can hold them off longer because I'm not seeing anything outside the office' or 'I need to start them on therapy now.'" Dr. Swain said another possible use could be for patients undergoing a change in treatment. "Maybe they're putting them on more meds, changing their meds, or putting them on meds for the first time … anything where the doctor thinks that finding out what the pressure is doing outside of the office hours or during the normal activities [would be helpful]," she said. The device will be rented out to patients with a supply of sterile, single-use probes. Dr. Swain said they are currently recommending doctors direct patients to use the de- vice for 5 days, taking measurements four to six times per day, but this recommendation might change as more data and understanding about the device are obtained. The device uses rebound technology, which Dr. Swain said involves a small, fast probe (no anesthetic required) with measuring coils inside that take into account the speed of the probe as it changes direction off the cornea and goes back into the device. This IOP measuring technology is different from air puff tonometers or Gold- man applanation tonometry (GAT). The device records and stores IOP, day, time, which eye, and a quality score to compare with other measurements until the data is retrieved by the physician. Dr. Swain said IOP measures are not displayed to the patient for a variety of reasons. "We do not want to interfere with the doctor's management of the patient, we just want to give them more information," she said. "If we were to display the IOP to the patient, we don't want the patient to take it into their own hands and say, 'My pressure is 16' and then take it just before bed and find it's 13 and think, 'My pressure is lower, I don't need to use my drops,' … or vice versa, it's higher by a couple of points so 'I better double up on my medication today.' … The IOP is not the only thing [doctors] look at, they look at the OCT, the pictures, the dilated exam, the nerve. They look at so many different things, Icare HOME is an at-home IOP monitoring device that received FDA approval this year. Source: Icare USA

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