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Preface

This book focuses on the chemistry and properties of contact lenses and their fabrication methods.

The text starts with a chapter in which a detailed history of contact lenses spanning over almost 500 years is presented

Next, common materials that are used for the fabrication of contact lenses are listed and explained, including both the monomers and polymers that are used in their production. Special issues regarding soft lenses, clear contact lenses, and functional contact lenses are also discussed.

Functional contact lenses can be used for remote health monitoring and ocular drug delivery systems. Besides the materials used here, these issues are detailed in further separate chapters. Also, special fabrication methods are discussed, e.g., the fabrication of multifocal contact lenses and the fabrication of ultrathin coatings.

There is also an important discussion on additives that can be used, e.g., for oxygen-permeable materials or anti-biofouling materials.

The chapter ends with a discussion of simulation methods for contact lenes, such asocular topography parameters, gas-permeable lenses, and computerized videokeratography.

In the second chapter, several common fabrication methods for contact lenses are discussed. Here, computer-aided contact lens design, methods for the fabrication of colored contact lenses, and the fabrication of decentered contact lenses are detailed.

Also, special processes are reviewed, including mold processes, reactive ion etching, electrospinning and others.

Another chapter discusses the properties of contact lenses and methods of measurement. Here, a lot of standard methods are discussed. Besides standard methods, other issues are discussed such as the assessment of cytotoxic effects, the Schirmer tear test and others.

A chapter is devoted to drug delivery of contact lenses, a comparatively new issue.

Finally, a chapter details the possible medical problems related to contact lenses and how to avoid them. These are eye diseases, allergic and toxic reactions. Also, disinfection agents that can be used and methods for the medical treatment of such problems are detailed.

The text focuses on the literature of the past decade. Beyond education, this book will serve the needs of industry engineers and specialists who have only a passing knowledge of the plastics and composites industries but need to know more.

How to Use This Book

Utmost care has been taken to present reliable data. Because of the vast variety of material presented here, however, the text cannot be complete in all aspects, and it is recommended that the reader study the original literature for more complete information.

The reader should be aware that mostly US patents have been cited where available, but not the corresponding equivalent patents in other countries. For this reason, the author cannot assume responsibility for the completeness, validity or consequences of the use of the material presented herein. Every attempt has been made to identify trademarks; however, there were some that the author was unable to locate.

Index

There are three indices: an index of acronyms, an index ofchemicals, and a general index.

In the index of chemicals, compounds that occur extensively, e.g., “acetone,” are not included at every occurrence, but rather when they appear in an important context.

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to our university librarians, Dr. Christian Hasenhüttl, Margit Keshmiri, Friedrich Scheer, Christian Slamenik, Renate Tschabuschnig, and Elisabeth Groß for their support in literature acquisition. I also want to express my gratitude to all the scientists who have carefully published their results concerning the topics dealt with herein. This book could not have been otherwise compiled.

In addition, I am very grateful to the ophthalmologists Dr. Anna Schlanitz-Bolldorf and Dr. Ferdinand Schlanitz, who inspired me to write this text. Last, but not least, I want to thank the publisher, Martin Scrivener, for his abiding interest and help in the preparation of the text. In addition, my thanks go to Jean Markovic, who made the final copyedit with utmost care.

Johannes Fink

Leoben, December 2, 2021