NONINVASIVE ULTRASOUND MEDIATED TRANSDERMAL TRANSPORT OF INSULIN ACROSS EX VIVO HUMAN SKIN

摘要

The purpose of this research was to improve low frequency (20 kHz) ultrasound methods for enhancing the transport of insulin across ex vivo human skin. The feasibility of using ultrasound produced by small, lightweight novel transducers was explored for enhancing the transport of insulin across skin. Previous investigators have used ultrasound devices such as large, heavy sonicators or commercially obtained transducers for this type of research. These experiments used two low-profile novel ultrasound transducer arrays, the stack and standard array, for improved transport of insulin. The stack array was driven with a spatial peak temporal peak intensity (I_(sptp)) of 15.5 +- 2.0 mW/cm~2 while the standard array had an I_(sptp) of 173.7 +- 9.1 mW/cm~2. Spectrophotometeric absorption techniques were used for determining insulin transport across ex vivo human skin. Compared to passive transmission (6.3 +- 14.0 U/hr), the standard array facilitated a 6-fold increase in the noninvasive transdermal transport of Humulin~(~R) insulin (39.6 +-11.7 U/hr). These promising results indicate that low frequency ultrasound can be used in a practical device for enhanced transport across the stratum corneum.