Printing Drugs onto Nails for Effective Treatment of Onychomycosis.

Sudaxshina Murdan,Margherita Bonetti,Mine Orlu,Simon Gaisford,Alvaro Goyanes,Thomas D. Pollard,Abdul W. Basit,Adam Day

doi:10.3390/pharmaceutics14020448

Sudaxshina Murdan, Margherita Bonetti + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics14020448

Copy DOI

Abstract

Inkjet printing (IJP) is an emerging technology for the precision dosing of medicines. We report, for the first time, the printing of the antifungal drug terbinafine hydrochloride directly onto nails for the treatment of onychomycosis. A commercial cosmetic nail printer was modified by removing the ink from the cartridge and replacing it with an in-house prepared drug-loaded ink. The drug-loaded ink was designed so that it was comparable to the commercial ink for key printability properties. Linear drug dosing was shown by changing the lightness of the colour selected for printing (R2 = 0.977) and by printing multiple times (R2 = 0.989). The drug loads were measured for heart (271 µg), world (205 µg) and football (133 µg) shapes. A disc diffusion assay against Trpytophan rubrum showed inhibition of fungal growth with printed-on discs. In vitro testing with human nails showed substantial inhibition with printed-on nails. Hence, this is the first study to demonstrate the ability of a nail printer for drug delivery, thereby confirming its potential for onychomycosis treatment.

Highlights

Inkjet printing (IJP) is an important technology for individualised healthcare [1], with applications ranging from biosensor production [2,3,4] to cell printing [5,6]
The nail clipping holder was inserted into the nail printer and printed on the desired number of times
Once the ink had dried (Figure 2f), the nail was removed from the holder and placed onto the T. rubrum-inoculated Petri dish and incubated at 37 °C for

Summary

Introduction

Inkjet printing (IJP) is an important technology for individualised healthcare [1], with applications ranging from biosensor production [2,3,4] to cell printing [5,6]. IJP is the deposition of small volumes of liquid from a cartridge. The cartridge expels the liquid using either thermal or piezoelectric actuation with precise control over the position. This control makes IJP an attractive technology for pharmaceutical research [7] and has showcased easier drug loading [8], increased data storage using QR codes [9], high loading capacities [10], improved dissolution rates [11,12], compatibility with continuous manufacturing [13] and medical device loading [14,15]. Different antimicrobials have been printed onto gauze [21] and microneedles [22,23,24,25]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion