Microneedle physical contact as a therapeutic for abnormal scars

Background: Abnormal (keloid and hypertrophic) scars are a significant affliction with no satisfactory single modality therapy to-date. Available options are often ineffective, painful, potentially hazardous, and require healthcare personnel involvement. Herein a self-administered microneedle device...

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Main Authors: Yeo, David Chenloong, Balmayor, Elizabeth R., Schantz, Jan-Thorsten, Xu, Chenjie
Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2017
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/85451
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/43719
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-854512023-12-29T06:49:56Z Microneedle physical contact as a therapeutic for abnormal scars Yeo, David Chenloong Balmayor, Elizabeth R. Schantz, Jan-Thorsten Xu, Chenjie School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering NTU-Northwestern Institute for Nanomedicine Abnormal scars Microneedle Background: Abnormal (keloid and hypertrophic) scars are a significant affliction with no satisfactory single modality therapy to-date. Available options are often ineffective, painful, potentially hazardous, and require healthcare personnel involvement. Herein a self-administered microneedle device based on drug-free physical contact for inhibiting abnormal scars is reported. Its therapeutic activity through microneedle contact eliminates hazards associated with toxic anti-scarring drugs while self-treatment enables administration flexibility. Methods : The microneedle patch was fabricated with FDA-approved liquid crystalline polymer under good manufacturing practice. It was first tested to ascertain its ability to inhibit (keloid) fibroblast proliferation. Later the microneedle patch was examined on the rabbit ear hypertrophic scar model to explore its potential in inhibiting the generation of abnormal scars post-injury. Finally, the microneedle patch was applied to the caudal region of a hypertrophic scar located on a female patient’s dorsum to verify clinical efficacy. Results : On untreated control cultures, barely any non-viable fibroblasts could be seen. After 12-h treatment with the microneedle patch, the non-viable proportion increased to 83.8 ± 11.96%. In rabbit ear hypertrophic scar model, 100% of the control wounds without the presence of patches on rabbit ears generated regions of raised dermis originating from the wound site (3/3), whereas microneedle treatment prevented dermis tissue thickening in 83.33% of the wounds (15/18). In the clinical test, the microneedle patch was well tolerated by the patient. Compared to the untreated region, microneedle treatment decreased the number of infiltrated inflammatory cells, with less disrupted dermis tissue architecture and more flattened appearance. Conclusions : A self-administered, drug-free microneedle patch appears highly promising in reducing abnormal scarring as observed from in vitro, in vivo and clinical experiments. Larger cohort clinical studies need to be performed to validate its efficacy on abnormal scars. Published version 2017-09-11T07:41:56Z 2019-12-06T16:03:56Z 2017-09-11T07:41:56Z 2019-12-06T16:03:56Z 2017 Journal Article Yeo, D. C., Balmayor, E. R., Schantz, J.-T., & Xu, C. (2017). Microneedle physical contact as a therapeutic for abnormal scars. European Journal of Medical Research, 22, 28-. 0949-2321 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/85451 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/43719 10.1186/s40001-017-0269-6 en European Journal of Medical Research © 2017 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/ publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. 9 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Abnormal scars
Microneedle
spellingShingle Abnormal scars
Microneedle
Yeo, David Chenloong
Balmayor, Elizabeth R.
Schantz, Jan-Thorsten
Xu, Chenjie
Microneedle physical contact as a therapeutic for abnormal scars
description Background: Abnormal (keloid and hypertrophic) scars are a significant affliction with no satisfactory single modality therapy to-date. Available options are often ineffective, painful, potentially hazardous, and require healthcare personnel involvement. Herein a self-administered microneedle device based on drug-free physical contact for inhibiting abnormal scars is reported. Its therapeutic activity through microneedle contact eliminates hazards associated with toxic anti-scarring drugs while self-treatment enables administration flexibility. Methods : The microneedle patch was fabricated with FDA-approved liquid crystalline polymer under good manufacturing practice. It was first tested to ascertain its ability to inhibit (keloid) fibroblast proliferation. Later the microneedle patch was examined on the rabbit ear hypertrophic scar model to explore its potential in inhibiting the generation of abnormal scars post-injury. Finally, the microneedle patch was applied to the caudal region of a hypertrophic scar located on a female patient’s dorsum to verify clinical efficacy. Results : On untreated control cultures, barely any non-viable fibroblasts could be seen. After 12-h treatment with the microneedle patch, the non-viable proportion increased to 83.8 ± 11.96%. In rabbit ear hypertrophic scar model, 100% of the control wounds without the presence of patches on rabbit ears generated regions of raised dermis originating from the wound site (3/3), whereas microneedle treatment prevented dermis tissue thickening in 83.33% of the wounds (15/18). In the clinical test, the microneedle patch was well tolerated by the patient. Compared to the untreated region, microneedle treatment decreased the number of infiltrated inflammatory cells, with less disrupted dermis tissue architecture and more flattened appearance. Conclusions : A self-administered, drug-free microneedle patch appears highly promising in reducing abnormal scarring as observed from in vitro, in vivo and clinical experiments. Larger cohort clinical studies need to be performed to validate its efficacy on abnormal scars.
author2 School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
author_facet School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
Yeo, David Chenloong
Balmayor, Elizabeth R.
Schantz, Jan-Thorsten
Xu, Chenjie
format Article
author Yeo, David Chenloong
Balmayor, Elizabeth R.
Schantz, Jan-Thorsten
Xu, Chenjie
author_sort Yeo, David Chenloong
title Microneedle physical contact as a therapeutic for abnormal scars
title_short Microneedle physical contact as a therapeutic for abnormal scars
title_full Microneedle physical contact as a therapeutic for abnormal scars
title_fullStr Microneedle physical contact as a therapeutic for abnormal scars
title_full_unstemmed Microneedle physical contact as a therapeutic for abnormal scars
title_sort microneedle physical contact as a therapeutic for abnormal scars
publishDate 2017
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/85451
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/43719
_version_ 1787136663031382016