Wireless Non-Invasive Monitoring of Cholesterol Using A Smart Contact Lens

Excessive cholesterol levels in the human body can cause an accumulation of plaques in an artery, which can induce hyperlipidemia. For diagnosing hyperlipidemia, it is important to continuously detect cholesterol levels. In recent years, the smart contact lens platform has emerged as a promising wearable healthcare device platform that measures non-invasive physiological signals in the human body. Herein, we present a soft smart contact lens that can detect cholesterol levels in tear fluids for monitoring hyperlipidemia patients using a smartphone. This smart contact lens incorporates an electrochemical biosensor for the detection of cholesterol concentrations, a stretchable antenna, and a near-field communication chip for wireless communication, which makes a smartphone the only device required to operate this smart contact lens wirelessly. The hyperlipidemia rabbit model was utilized to confirm the correlation between cholesterol levels in tear fluid and blood and to verify the feasibility of this smart contact lens for the diagnostic application of cholesterol-related diseases. Moreover, in-vivo studies with human subjects demonstrated high potential as a non-invasive healthcare device with good wearability and reliability as a non-invasive healthcare device.