Noninvasive Transdermal Delivery System of Lidocaine Using an Acoustic Droplet‐Vaporization Based Wearable Patch

Abstract

Current technologies for managing acute and chronic pain have focused on reducing the time required for achieving high therapeutic efficiency. Herein a wearable transdermal patch is introduced, employing an acoustic droplet vaporization (ADV) methodology, as an effective noninvasive transdermal platform, for a fast local delivery of the anesthetic agent lidocaine. The skin‐worn patch consists of a flexible drug reservoir containing hundreds of micropores loaded with lidocaine, and mixed with the perfluorocarbon (PFC) emulsion. The ultrasound‐triggered vaporization of the PFC emulsion provides the necessary force to breach dermal barriers. The drug release kinetics of our model was investigated by measuring the amount of lidocaine that passed through phantom tissue and pigskin barriers. The ADV platform increases the payload skin penetration resulting in shorter treatment times compared to passive diffusion or ultrasound alone, holding considerable promise for addressing the delayed therapeutic action and slow pain relief of existing delivery protocols. It is envisioned that the integration of ADV‐based transdermal devices could be expanded to the depth‐dependent delivery of other pain management, vaccines, and gene therapy modalities.

Medical Micro/Nanorobots in Precision Medicine

“…The use of acoustic droplet vaporization microballistic delivery resulted in enhanced delivery of the anesthetic agent lidocaine when compared to passive diffusion or the use of ultrasound pulses by themself. [279] Using a similar firing mechanism solidgas polymeric nanocups were used for deep tissue penetration.…”

Review on Acoustic Droplet Vaporization in Ultrasound Diagnostics and Therapeutics

“…Soto et al [11] recently developed a wearable transdermal patch, which consists of a drug reservoir containing hundreds of micropores loaded with lidocaine. The drug is released upon ultrasound exposure, which enables faster and deeper penetration on the skin compared to non-ADV-generating ultrasound exposure and therefore a more efficient drug release.…”

“…By benefiting from the broad potentials of ADV in medical applications, with consideration of its capability in localized noninvasive energy exposure, it is possible to utilize its effect in targeted drug delivery [4, 5], embolotherapy [6], ultrasound imaging [7–10], transdermal noninvasive drug delivery [11], theranostics [12, 13], thermal therapy [14, 15], and histotripsy [16, 17].…”

Colloids, nanoparticles, and materials for imaging, delivery, ablation, and theranostics by focused ultrasound (FUS)

“…They showed that vaporization of phase-change droplets using FUS fired the silica nanoparticles from these “microcannons,” which could be useful for transdermal delivery (Figure 14) 226. Later they also used this strategy for transdermal delivery of an anesthetic agent lidocaine 227. However, metastability of these fluorocarbon-based ultrasound active agents prevents their long-term use as they evaporate or dissolve in hydrogels in a few days, and thus, hydrogels lose their ultrasound activity 223,224.…”