School of Pharmacy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai, 200240, P.R. China.
Curr Pharm Biotechnol. 2012 Jun;13(7):1292-8. doi: 10.2174/138920112800624319.
The birth of microneedles, an array of needles sufficiently long to penetrate epidermis but small enough to do not cause skin injury and pain feeling, has offered a highly promising solution for non-invasive delivery of protein and peptide drugs, a long-cherished desire over eighty years. However, the attempts to develop clinically feasible microneedle transdermal delivery methods encountered series of difficulties, for which a decade research efforts have yet to result in a single product. Microneedles may be incorporated into devices as skin pre-treatment tools, skin microinjectors as well as transdermal patches by their functions in drug delivery. They may also be categorized to insoluble solid microneedles, hollow microneedles, soluble/degradable solid microneedles and phase-transition microneedles by their structure and forming materials. This review article is aimed to update the progress and discuss the technical challenges raised in developing protein/peptide loaded microneedle patches.
微针的诞生为蛋白质和肽类药物的非侵入性递送提供了一个极具前景的解决方案，这些药物长期以来一直是人们梦寐以求的。微针是一种足够长可以穿透表皮但又足够小不会造成皮肤损伤和疼痛感觉的针阵列。然而，开发临床可行的微针经皮给药方法的尝试遇到了一系列困难，为此，十年来的研究努力尚未产生一种单一的产品。微针可以根据其在药物输送中的功能作为皮肤预处理工具、皮肤微注射器以及经皮贴片而被整合到设备中。根据其结构和形成材料，微针还可以分为不溶性固体微针、空心微针、可溶性/可降解固体微针和相转变微针。本文旨在更新进展并讨论在开发载有蛋白质/肽的微针贴片方面提出的技术挑战。
