A new way to deliver drug by pressure.

applying 'temporal pressure' to the skin of mice can create a new way to deliver drugs.

In a paper published in Science Advances, the researchers showed that bringing together two magnets so that they pinch and apply pressure to a fold of skin, led to short term changes in the skin barrier and specifically the formation of "micropores" underneath its surface.

In tests, they showed that these micropores, of about 3 micrometers in area, allowed drugs applied on the surface of the skin to diffuse through it more easily. Six times greater quantity of drug diffused through the skin of mice with the micropores compared to the skin of mice which did not receive the temporal pressure treatment.

"Our research project was first inspired by the traditional Chinese medicine 'tuina' therapy where physicians rub and apply pressure on skin and muscle tissue and apply a topical ointment," 

Experimental results showed that nanoparticles and insulin were effectively delivered through the skin of mice, at molecular masses up to 20,000 daltons.

This mass is 40 times the largest currently reported in the scientific literature for transdermal drug delivery (i.e. via patches), which is 500 daltons.

The amount of drug delivered via the temporal pressure method was also comparable to the amount delivered by a microneedle patch.

In experiments, the team also found that with their method, cells in the skin layer (epidermis) were observed to have an increase in the number of 'gap junctions' and a reduction in 'tight junctions.'

 

 

reference

Daniel Chin Shiuan Lio et al. Temporal pressure enhanced topical drug delivery through micropore formation, Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz6919