Highly Efficient Transfection Effect of Transdermal Drug Delivery via Skin by Hybrid Bipolar Arc Plasma Stimulation and Dual Pulse Electroporation Technique

Abstract

In this study, a hybrid bipolar arc plasma stimulation (BAPS) and dual pulse electroporation (DPEP) technique was used to form microchannels, and the effect of highly efficient transformation drug delivery (TDD) on the skin was analyzed. The BAPS technique was applied to pig skin to form a microchannel as a biological sample to measure and observe the plasma as a micropore. During the BAPS, an output voltage of 1 kVpp at 40 kHz was applied at duty rates of 20%, 40%, and 60%. The BAPS technique was applied to the keratin skin layer, and microchannels with an average size of 30 μm × 30 μm and up to 77 μm × 55 μm were formed only in the keratin layer without any damage to the dermal layer. Next, DPEP was stimulated to increase the permeability of the endothelial membrane in the structure with the microchannels. The proposed hybrid technique effectively introduces TDD deeper into the employed 20 female subjects skin test with average age of 44 years, and the results in the absorption rate increase about 418%.

Keywords

• Bipolar arc plasma stimulation
• electroporation
• microchannel
• transdermal drug delivery