Spatially constrained skin electroporation with sodium thiosulfate and urea creates transdermal microconduits.
Controlled transport of molecules through the skin's main barrier, the stratum corneum (SC), is a long standing goal of transdermal drug delivery. Traditional, needle-based injection provides delivery of almost any water soluble compound, by creating a single large aqueous pathway in the form of the hollow core of a needle, through which drug is delivered by pressure-driven flow. We extend previous work to show that SC-spanning microconduits (here with diameters of about 200 microm) can be created in vivo by skin electroporation and low-toxicity, keratolytic molecules (here sodium thiosulfate and urea). A single microconduit in isolated SC can support volumetric flow of the order of 0.01 ml s(-1) by a pressure difference of only 0.01 atm (about 10(2) Pa), demonstrating that the SC barrier has been essentially eliminated within this microscopic area.
Ilic
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Harvard-MIT Health Science and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Gowrishankar
T R
TR
Vaughan
T E
TE
Herndon
T O
TO
Weaver
J C
JC
D000328:Adult; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D004563:Electrochemistry; D018274:Electroporation; D006801:Humans; D012867:Skin / Q000378:metabolism*; D013885:Thiosulfates / Q000494:pharmacology*; D014508:Urea / Q000494:pharmacology*
D013885:Thiosulfates; D014508:Urea; C017717:sodium thiosulfate