New intraocular pressure measurement method using reflected pneumatic pressure from cornea deformed by air puff of ring-type nozzle

In this study, a non-contact type intraocular pressure (IOP) measuring system using reflected pneumatic pressure is proposed to overcome the disadvantages of existing measurement systems. A ring-type nozzle, a key component in the proposed system, is designed via computational fluid analysis. It predicts the reflected pneumatic pressure based on the nozzle exit angle and inner and outer diameters of the nozzle, which are 30°, 7 mm, and 9 mm, respectively. Performance evaluation is conducted using artificial eyes fabricated using polydimethylsiloxane with the specifications of human eyes. The IOP of the fabricated artificial eyes is adjusted to 10, 30, and 50 mm Hg, and the reflected pneumatic pressure is measured as a function of the distance between the ring-type nozzle and artificial eye. The measured reflected pneumatic pressure is high when the measurement distance is short and eye pressure is low. The cornea of an artificial eye is significantly deformed at a low IOP, and the applied pneumatic pressure is more concentrated in front of the ring-type nozzle because of the deformed cornea. Thus, the reflected pneumatic pressure at a low IOP has more inflows into the pressure sensor inserted inside the nozzle. The sensitivity of the output based on the IOP at measurement distances between 3–5 mm is -0.0027, -0.0022, -0.0018, -0.0015, and -0.0012. Sensitivity decreases as the measurement distance increases. In addition, the reflected pneumatic pressure owing to the misalignment at the measurement distances of 3–5 mm is not affected within a range of 0.5 mm. Therefore, the measurement range is acceptable up to a 1 mm diameter from the center of an artificial eye. However, the accuracy gradually decreases as the reflected pneumatic pressure from a misalignment of 1 mm or more decreases by 26% or more.