RESEARCH ARTICLE
Modeling of Drug Delivery by A Pump Driven Micro-Needle Array System
Kai Chen1, *, Min Pan1, Zhi-Gang Feng2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2016Volume: 10
First Page: 19
Last Page: 33
Publisher ID: TOBEJ-10-19
DOI: 10.2174/1874120701610010019
Article History:
Received Date: 20/11/2015Revision Received Date: 13/2/2016
Acceptance Date: 17/2/2016
Electronic publication date: 30/03/2016
Collection year: 2016
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background:
Micro-needles were proposed as one of the alternatives to deliver drugs painlessly passing through stratum corneum in recent years. In this work, a mathematical model is presented to characterize the in fusion flow of a hollow micro-needle array driven by a micro-pump.
Methods:
By assuming the injection of each micro-needle undergoes a spherical expansion and diffusion, the model is able to calculate the time-varying expansion radius, and the diffusion boundary, provided that the material properties and the micro-needle system parameters are known.
Results and Conclusion:
The calculation results show that the expansion caused by the infusion of micro-needles stops and the flow rate drops to zero in a short time. However, the diffusion boundary is much bigger than the expansion and the infusion continues if the surrounding material is absorptive. The experimental results of jet infusion through a single needle in silicon rubber and polyacrylamide gel agree with the calculation results qualitatively.