University of Naples Federico II, Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Via Claudio21, 80125 Naples, Italy.
CRdC Tecnologie Scarl, Via Nuova Agnano, 11-80125 Naples, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2017 Mar 24;7:44647. doi: 10.1038/srep44647.
The effectiveness in transdermal delivery of skin permeation strategies (e.g., chemical enhancers, vesicular carrier systems, sonophoresis, iontophoresis, and electroporation) is poorly investigated outside of laboratory. In therapeutic application, the lack of recognized techniques for measuring the actually-released drug affects the scientific concept itself of dosage for topically- and transdermally-delivered drugs. Here we prove the suitability of impedance measurement for assessing the amount of drug penetrated into the skin after transdermal delivery. In particular, the measured amount of drug depends linearly on the impedance magnitude variation normalized to the pre-treated value. Three experimental campaigns, based on the electrical analysis of the biological tissue behavior due to the drug delivery, are reported: (i) laboratory emulation on eggplants, (ii) ex-vivo tests on pig ears, and finally (iii) in-vivo tests on human volunteers. Results point out that the amount of delivered drug can be assessed by reasonable metrological performance through a unique measurement of the impedance magnitude at one single frequency. In particular, in-vivo results point out sensitivity of 23 ml, repeatability of 0.3%, non-linearity of 3.3%, and accuracy of 5.7%. Finally, the measurement resolution of 0.20 ml is compatible with clinical administration standards.
透皮传递策略(例如化学增强剂、囊泡载体系统、声透法、离子电渗法和电穿孔)的经皮传递效果在实验室之外的研究甚少。在治疗应用中,缺乏用于测量实际释放药物的公认技术会影响到局部和经皮递药的药物剂量的科学概念本身。在这里,我们证明了阻抗测量在评估经皮传递后药物渗透到皮肤中的量方面的适用性。特别是,测量的药物量与预处理值归一化后的阻抗幅度变化呈线性相关。报告了三项基于药物传递对生物组织行为的电分析的实验:(i)茄子的实验室模拟,(ii)猪耳的离体测试,以及最后(iii)人体志愿者的体内测试。结果表明,通过在单个频率下对阻抗幅度进行唯一测量,可以通过合理的计量性能评估输送药物的量。特别是,体内结果指出了 23 ml 的灵敏度、0.3%的重复性、3.3%的非线性和 5.7%的准确性。最后,0.20 ml 的测量分辨率与临床给药标准兼容。