A solid polymer microneedle patch pretreatment enhances the permeation of drug molecules into the skin

Abstract

In this work, solid microneedles (MNs) for skin pretreatment were systematically studied including MN height, density, spacing, and so on.

Touch-actuated microneedle array patch for closed-loop transdermal drug delivery

“…The mean normoglycemic time treated with 20 IU-insulin-loaded TMAP-II was approximately 11.63 h. This indicated that just two TMAPs could maintain the diabetic rats in the normoglycemic state for a day. To the best of our knowledge, this is the longest normoglycemic time period achieved with treatments using the insulin-loaded microneedle-based transdermal patches, as reported for type 1 diabetic rats (Chen et al., 2009 ; Zhou et al., 2010 ; Liu et al., 2012 ; Ling and Chen, 2013 ; Li et al., 2017b ; Yu et al., 2017a ; Yu et al., 2017b ; Yu et al., 2017c ). Therefore, 20 IU-insulin-loaded TMAPs administrated with approach II is an attractive candidate to treat type 1 diabetic SD rats.…”

“…the ability to create multiple insertions into the skin). The mechanical stability of TMAP can be evaluated by the relationship between the intact insertions and the microneedle number (Li et al., 2017b ). The red dots remained on the skin surface indicates the rhodamine B permeation into the skin through the microchannels created by solid MA, which means successful insertion.…”

“…It consisted of a solid MA, a medical tape, an anti-seepage gasket, and a medical sponge. The polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) solid MA was fabricated using a micromolding technique (Li et al., 2017b ). The detailed fabrication process of the solid MA is presented in Figure S1 of Supporting Information.…”

“…The stratum corneum (SC) of the skin is a protective barrier, which prevents most drugs or therapeutic agents to enter deeper skin layers, particularly high molecular weight molecules (Tuan-Mahmood et al., 2013 ; Lee et al., 2017 ). Only small molecular drugs (<400 Da) can generally cross the skin at therapeutic rates while the dose of these drugs that permeate through the skin is relatively low (Li et al., 2017b ).…”

Controlled Delivery of Insulin Using Rapidly Separating Microneedles Fabricated from Genipin‐Crosslinked Gelatin

“…Microneedle (MN) is a micrometer size array of needles which might be able to penetrate superficial dermis by enhancing permeability of skin, thereby, easy local and systematic administration of drugs with high drug delivery efficiency . The MN‐based insulin delivery studies reported in the literature mainly comprises solid MNs, hollow MNs, and dissolving MNs . Solid MNs are used to create transient channels on skin to facilitate insulin permeability, but lack the capacity to load drugs.…”