Recent Advances of Microneedles and Their Application in Disease Treatment

Abstract

For decades, scientists have been doing a lot of research and exploration to find effective long-term analgesic and/or disease-modifying treatments. Microneedles (MNs) are a simple, effective, and painless transdermal drug delivery technology that has emerged in recent years, and exhibits great promise for realizing intelligent drug delivery. With the development of materials science and fabrication technology, the MN transdermal drug delivery technology has been applied and popularized in more and more fields, including chronic illnesses such as arthritis or diabetes, cancer, dermatocosmetology, family planning, and epidemic disease prevention, and has made fruitful achievements. This paper mainly reviews the latest research status of MNs and their fabrication methodology, and summarizes the application of MNs in the treatment of various diseases, as well as the potential to use nanotechnology to develop more intelligent MNs-based drug delivery systems.

Microneedles and Their Application in Transdermal Delivery of Antihypertensive Drugs—A Review

“…MNs are medical devices with a single or a group of needles with a diameter of a few micrometers that transport drug components to the outermost layers of the skin [ 77 , 78 ]. For transdermal drug delivery, a needle with a length of up to 1000 µm is long enough to pass through the stratum corneum and release the drug into the dermis [ 79 , 80 ]. MNs benefit from reducing tension or anxiety caused by needle phobia, vasovagal reactions, and pain experienced when a traditional needle is used [ 81 , 82 ].…”

3D-Printed Microneedles for Point-of-Care Biosensing Applications

“…The organization of needles in micro- and nano- scales on an array or patch, introduced the emerging term of microneedle arrays (MNAs), are prominent minimally invasive injection setups for medical and biomedical applications ranging from delivery of drugs and agents to body to extracting body fluids and bio signal acquisition, to name a few [ 1 ]. Minimizing insertion pain in comparison with conventional needle technologies, MNAs not only offer a solution for needle phobia, the anxiety linked to the injection or utilizing needles, but also pave the way for the fabrication of more convenient devices that decrease tissue damage [ 2 ].…”

Coated Microneedle System for Delivery of Clotrimazole in Deep-Skin Mycoses

“…Also, it is possible to precisely deliver API to the selected site while reducing the dosing frequency [27,31]. Microneedle systems most often have the form of a patch-a matrix with needles (Figure 2) with dimensions of 25-1000 µm [32]. MNs should have adequate strength, ductility and hardness, and also should penetrate the upper layer of the skin-s.c.-without touching the nerves or blood vessels so patients do not feel intense pain during application [27,31].…”

“…Despite many advantages, there are some limitations to using MNs, mainly in the form of allergic reactions on the skin and irritations. Moreover, due to the small thickness of the needles, there is a risk of damage and breakage of the tips that will remain in the skin [32,34]. This problem can be solved by selecting the appropriate material for production, which is the leading subject of research during their optimization [24].…”

“…This problem can be solved by selecting the appropriate material for production, which is the leading subject of research during their optimization [24]. Choosing the right composition allows for obtaining a prolonged release of the API under selected conditions [27,32]. There is also a certain risk of polymers being released after the needles are inserted into the skin, but the use of biodegradable polymers combats this drawback and allows for safe use [28].…”