Issue 25, 2017

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

Abstract

Solid microneedles (MNs) for skin pretreatment have attracted considerable attention in recent years due to their ability to increase skin permeability. There are several approved cosmetic products using microneedles in the market including Dermaroller, silicon MNs, etc. However, a safer MN which is made of biodegradable polymers hasn't been commercialized. Solid polymer MNs still need the support of theoretical data to realize the prospect of mass production and clinical application. In this work, we aim to employ polylactic acid (PLA) MNs to systemically investigate the mechanical and stability properties of the microneedles and the effect of MN dimensions, drug concentration, the viscosity of drug formulation and the administration time of drug on the skin on the drug permeation into the pretreated skin. Multiple applications test demonstrated MNs with the height of 600 μm possessed good mechanical stability performance. 800 μm depth microneedle and microneedle with the density of 256 MNs per cm2 were most conductive to enhance the drug permeation. In addition, the increasing of drug concentration could increase the permeation amount of drug, but not affected on drug permeation rate. With the increase of drug viscosity, the drug permeation amount was decreased. To prolong the administration time of drug on the skin at 1 h, the drug permeation amount achieved a stable value and essentially unchanged after 1 h. Finally, the permeation effect induced by the MNs was demonstrated by insulin delivery in vivo. The blood glucose levels of diabetic mice were reduced to 29% of initial level at 5 h due to the increased permeability of insulin to the skin after MNs insertion. In conclusion, the biodegradable polymer solid microneedles can painlessly pierce the stratum corneum and accelerate the absorption of drug and active ingredients.

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

  • This article is part of the themed collection: Biomaterials

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
14 nov 2016
Accepted
25 feb 2017
First published
08 mrt 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

RSC Adv., 2017,7, 15408-15415

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

Q. Y. Li, J. N. Zhang, B. Z. Chen, Q. L. Wang and X. D. Guo, RSC Adv., 2017, 7, 15408 DOI: 10.1039/C6RA26759A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements