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Mars Base

Laser-powered 'needle' promises pain-free injections - 0 views

phys.org/...-powered-needle-pain-free.html

scibyte63 MedicalDevice

shared by Mars Base on 14 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • To test the effectiveness of the drug delivery system, a special gel is used to mimic the behavior of human skin
  • hypodermic needles are still the first choice for ease-of-use, precision, and control
  • A new laser-based system, however, that blasts microscopic jets of drugs into the skin could soon make getting a shot as painless as being hit with a puff of air
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • The laser is combined with a small adaptor that contains the drug to be delivered, in liquid form, plus a chamber containing water that acts as a "driving" fluid
  • A flexible membrane separates these two liquids
  • This type of laser is commonly used by dermatologists, "particularly for facial esthetic treatments
  • Each laser pulse, which lasts just 250 millionths of a second, generates a vapor bubble inside the driving fluid.
  • pressure of that bubble puts elastic strain on the membrane, causing the drug to be forcefully ejected from a miniature nozzle in a narrow jet a mere 150 millionths of a meter (micrometers) in diameter
  • little larger than the width of a human hair
  • impacting jet pressure is higher than the skin tensile strength and thus causes the jet to smoothly penetrate into the targeted depth underneath the skin
  • Tests on guinea pig skin show that the drug-laden jet can penetrate up to several millimeters beneath the skin surface, with no damage to the tissue
  • Because of the narrowness and quickness of the jet, it should cause little or no pain
  • This region of the skin has no nerve endings, so the method "will be completely pain-free
  • ou/Seoul National University. In previous studies, the researchers used a laser wavelength that was not well absorbed by the water of the driving liquid, causing the formation of tiny shock waves that dissipated energy and hampered the formation of the vapor bub
  • laser with a wavelength of 2,940 nanometers, which is readily absorbed by water. This allows the formation of a larger and more stable vapor bubble
  • The laser-driven microjet injector can precisely control dose and the depth of drug penetration underneath the skin. Control via laser power is the major advancement over other devices
  • now working with a company to produce low-cost replaceable injectors for clinical use
  • Further work would be necessary to adopt it for scenarios like mass vaccine injections for children
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