Dissolving Microneedles Developed in Association with Nanosystems: A Scoping Review on the Quality Parameters of These Emerging Systems for Drug or Protein Transdermal Delivery.

Patrícia Weimer,Rochele Cassanta Rossi,Letícia Scherer Koester

doi:10.3390/pharmaceutics13101601

Patrícia Weimer, Rochele Cassanta Rossi + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics13101601

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Abstract

The largest organ of the body provides the main challenge for the transdermal delivery of lipophilic or high molecular weight drugs. To cross the main barrier of the skin, the stratum corneum, many techniques have been developed and improved. In the last 20 years, the association of microneedles with nanostructured systems has gained prominence for its versatility and for enabling targeted drug delivery. Currently, the combination of these mechanisms is pointed to as an emerging technology; however, some gaps need to be answered to transcend the development of these devices from the laboratory scale to the pharmaceutical market. It is known that the lack of regulatory guidelines for quality control is a hindrance to market conquest. In this context, this study undertakes a scoping review of original papers concerning methods applied to evaluate both the quality and drug/protein delivery of dissolving and hydrogel-forming microneedles developed in association with nanostructured systems.

Highlights

In the last decades, there has been growing interest in the delivery of substances, drugs, and proteins by transdermal route owing to specific advantages of this route, including the absence of first-pass effect, reduction in the number of doses achieved by controlled release, and good acceptability by patients
The studies were searched in June 2021 in three databases: Web of Science, EMBASE, and MEDLINE (PubMed), in which the search was restricted to English only, with no additional restriction on publication date or document type
The first query presented terms related to microneedles, the second related to nanostructured systems, and the third was composed of terms associated with the transdermal release of substances and drugs

Summary

Introduction

There has been growing interest in the delivery of substances, drugs, and proteins by transdermal route owing to specific advantages of this route, including the absence of first-pass effect, reduction in the number of doses achieved by controlled release, and good acceptability by patients. The transdermal route confers some limitations on the administration of classical pharmaceutical forms, restricting the administration of compounds according to lipophilicity and molecular size (

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