Recent advances of microneedles for biomedical applications: drug delivery and beyond

Publication date: Available online 4 April 2019Source: Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica BAuthor(s): Jian Yang, Xinli Liu, Yunzhi Fu, Yujun SongAbstractThe microneedle (MN), a highly efficient and versatile device, has attracted extensive scientific and industrial interests in the past decades due to prominent properties including painless penetration, low cost, excellent therapeutic efficacy, and relative safety. The robust microneedle enabling transdermal delivery has a paramount potential to create advanced functional devices with superior nature for biomedical applications. In this review, a great effort has been made to summarize the advance of microneedles including their materials and latest fabrication method, such as three-dimensional printing (3DP). Importantly, a variety of representative biomedical applications of microneedles such as disease treatment, immunobiological administration, disease diagnosis and cosmetic field, are highlighted in detail. At last, conclusions and future perspectives for development of advanced microneedles in biomedical fields have been discussed systematically. Taken together, as an emerging tool, microneedles have showed profound promise for biomedical applications.Graphical abstractAs a promising device, microneedles have made significant progress for revolutionizing the field of disease treatment, immunobiological administration, disease diagnosis, and cosmetic applications. We discuss a variety of materials and fabrication methods of micro...
Source: Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research