| 研究実績の概要 |
Our purpose was to fabricate mechanically-stable, porous microneedle (PMN) arrays strengthened by a drug-releasing hydrogel filling. We have investigated cellulose acetate (CA) as a polymeric material for the PMN fabrication. The arrays were made by diffusion of water into solution of CA in DMSO. The slow exchange of the solvents results in precipitation of the polymer and after optimization of the conditions, sharp and uniform microneedles could be formed. The needles featured very high porosity (~90%), narrow pore size (~2 μm) and moderate mechanical strength (~0.2 N). Since CA is more hydrophilic material it could easily absorb our pre-gel solution (mixture of monomer solutions). The hydrogel was formed in the interconnected pores after UV-polymerization of the monomer soaked PMN array.
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