Adjusting inkjet printhead parameters to deposit drugs into micro-sized reservoirs

Abstract

Drug delivery systems (DDS) ensure that therapeutically effective drug concentrations are delivered locally to the target site. For that reason, it is common to coat implants with a degradable polymer which contains drugs. However, the use of polymers as a drug carrier has been associated with adverse side effects. For that reason, several technologies have been developed to design polymer-free DDS. In literature it has been shown that micro-sized reservoirs can be applied as drug reservoirs. Inkjet techniques are capable of depositing drugs into these reservoirs. In this study, two different geometries of micro-sized reservoirs have been laden with a drug (ASA) using a drop-on-demand inkjet printhead. Correlations between the characteristics of the drug solution, the operating parameters of the printhead and the geometric parameters of the reservoir are shown. It is indicated that wettability of the surface play a key role for drug deposition into micro-sized reservoirs.

Influence of the Volatility of Solvent on the Reproducibility of Droplet Formation in Pharmaceutical Inkjet Printing

“…This suggests that initially there is a loss of accuracy in droplet positioning, while the precision of volume dosing is affected less severely and less rapidly. These results are particularly important when high droplet positioning precision is required, as it is the case for drug loading in reservoir-based drug delivery systems (e.g., drug-eluting reservoir stents [ 50 , 51 ] or reservoir-based drug delivery micro-devices for oromucosal drug delivery [ 21 , 22 ] or microneedle systems for transdermal drug delivery [ 16 , 17 , 18 ].…”

The Surface Modification Methods for Constructing Polymer-Coated Stents

“…Perkins et al [54] deposited International Journal of Polymer Science polymeric coatings on magnesium alloy by utilizing the direct-write printing method in order to enhance metallic biocompatibility and inhibit its corrosion rate. In recent studies, Mau and coworkers [56] investigated drug deposition into microsized reservoirs using a drop-on-demand inkjet print head. They further pointed out that the wettability of the surface played a vital role for drug deposition into microsized reservoirs.…”

“…From the procedure of inkjet printing technology, this process mainly involves the printing of polymeric microparticles with tunable droplets, oral films, coating of transdermal microneedle surfaces, and stent coating of drug-loaded polymeric layers [53], which considerably drives its applications in preparing lots of medical devices including drug-eluting stents for cardiovascular treatment. However, the challenges of this technique are yet faced [56]: (1) the biological agents which are to be deposited need to be dissolved in appropriate solvents; (2) the printability of the dissolution is a vital factor for polymer-drug coating; and (3) controlling evaporation speed is required for the development of drug-loaded microreservoirs. What is worse, it is challenging for producing tissue/organ analogs with fully biological characteristics and complex microstructure [57].…”