Researchers at Purdue University in the United States have just developed a new treatment option for melanoma: a skin patch capable of continuously delivering chemotherapy treatment.
- Researchers have developed a skin patch that could replace conventional chemotherapy in the treatment of melanoma.
Representing 10% of skin cancers diagnosed each year, melanoma is the most serious and deadly form of skin cancer because it can rapidly metastasize. Appearing on healthy skin in 70 to 80% of cases or resulting from the malignant transformation of a mole, it can however be cured in 88% of cases if diagnosed early.
Of them treatment options then available to patients: conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and topical chemotherapy. In the case of the first, the toxicity of the products used and the importance of the side effects can make the treatment difficult to bear. As for topical chemotherapies, their widespread use is made difficult, both because of the pain associated with micro-needles, and by the rapid dissolution of the polymers used in the treatments.
Researchers at Purdue University in Indiana (USA) may have found a less invasive and cumbersome alternative to melanoma treatment: a skin patch containing silicone needles.
A painless long-term treatment
In an article published in the journal ACS Nano, they detail their invention. “We have developed a novel wearable patch with fully miniaturized needles, enabling discreet drug delivery through the skin for the management of skin cancersexplains Chi Hwan Lee, assistant professor of Purdue in biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering. This patch is unique in that it can be fully dissolved by bodily fluids in a programmable manner, so that the patch substrate is dissolved within one minute of the needles being inserted into the skin, followed by dissolution gradual introduction of silicone needles inside the tissues in a few months.”
The bioabsorbable silicone nano-needles of the patch are inserted on a thin, flexible and water-soluble medical film, which allows, once the insertion of the nano-needles, a rapid and complete dissolution in one minute.
The needles, configured to be painless, are able to deliver chemotherapeutic drugs and target melanoma sites for a long time. They also resolve within a few months.
“The uniqueness of our technology comes from the fact that we used extremely small but durable silicon nano-needles, with sharp angled tips that easily penetrate the skin in a painless and minimally invasive way”explains Professor Lee.
According to his team, this slow and gradual dissolution of the silicone nano-needles could make it possible to provide other durable and long-lasting anti-cancer treatments than that for melanoma.
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