Abstract
Recent reports using a breathing simulator system have suggested that mesh nebulizers provide more effective medication delivery than jet nebulizers. In this study, the performances of jet and mesh nebulizers were evaluated by comparing their aerosol drug delivery efficiencies in mice. We compared four home nebulizers: two jet nebulizers (PARI BOY SX with red and blue nozzles), a static mesh nebulizer (NE-U22), and a vibrating mesh nebulizer (NE-SM1). After mice were exposed to salbutamol aerosol, the levels of salbutamol in serum and lung were estimated by enzyme linked immunoassay (ELISA). The residual volume of salbutamol was the largest at 34.6% in PARI BOY SX, while the values for NE-U22 and NE-SM1 mesh nebulizers were each less than 1%. The salbutamol delivery efficiencies of NE-U22 and NE-SM1 were higher than that of PARI BOY SX, as the total delivered amounts of lung and serum were 39.9% and 141.7% as compared to PARI BOY SX, respectively. The delivery efficiency of the mesh nebulizer was better than that of the jet nebulizer. Although the jet nebulizer can generate smaller aerosol particles than the mesh nebulizer used in this study, the output rate of the jet nebulizer is low, resulting in lower salbutamol delivery efficiency. Therefore, clinical validation of the drug delivery efficiency according to nebulizer type is necessary to avoid overdose and reduced drug wastage.
Highlights
Nebulizers are commonly used to treat and manage a variety of diseases, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis, and pneumonia
Aerosol therapy via a nebulizer is mainly used to relieve the respiratory symptoms of children and adults in the home and hospital
Nebulizers vary in their output characteristics and dosing rates depending on their working principles
Summary
Nebulizers are commonly used to treat and manage a variety of diseases, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis, and pneumonia. Nebulizers are medical devices that generate an aerosol by agitating a medication solution and deliver drugs rapidly and directly into the airways. Nebulizers have many advantages compared to systemic delivery, such as the ability to use a smaller dose, faster onset of the effects, topical application of a drug to the lungs, fewer systemic side effects, and ease and convenience to the patient [1]. Jet nebulizers are generally considered the gold standard method in the clinical field for delivering medicines to patients requiring aerosol therapy. Compressor-based jet nebulizer systems are inconvenient because they require extra tubing, their associated treatment times are long, the compressors are heavy and generate noise during their operation, and mechanical shear forces can affect certain medications [2,3,4]. Jet nebulizers are inefficient in drug delivery because of the variability of the actual dose delivered to the airways and lungs
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