Needle-free jet injections: dependence of jet penetration and dispersion in the skin on jet power

Abstract

Jet injection is a needle-free drug delivery method in which a high-speed stream of fluid impacts the skin and delivers drugs. Although a number of jet injectors are commercially available, especially for insulin delivery, a quantitative understanding of the energetics of jet injection is still lacking. Here, we describe the dependence of jet injections into human skin on the power of the jet. Dermal delivery of liquid jets was quantified using two measurements, penetration of a radiolabeled solute, mannitol, into skin and the shape of jet dispersion in the skin which was visualized using sulforhodamine B (SRB). The power of the jet at the nozzle was varied from 1 to 600 W by independently altering the nozzle diameter (30–560 μm) and jet velocity (100–200 m/s). The dependence of the amount of liquid delivered in the skin and the geometric measurements of jet dispersion on nozzle diameter and jet velocity was captured by a single parameter, jet power. Additional experiments were performed using a model material, polyacrylamide gel, to further understand the dependence of jet penetration on jet power. These experiments demonstrated that jet power also effectively describes gel erosion due to liquid impingement.