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Therapeutic Applications of Electroporation

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Percutaneous Penetration Enhancers Physical Methods in Penetration Enhancement

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Abstract

Transdermal electroporation is an active drug permeation enhancement technique that produces transient aqueous pores in the intercellular lipid matrix of the stratum corneum. The electroporation protocols are efficiently tailored to achieve desired mass transfer into and across the skin, for therapeutic agents ranging from smaller molecules to macromolecules. The potential of transdermal electroporation has been demonstrated through the development of various treatment modalities in several preclinical and clinical studies. The ability of electroporation to administer macromolecules like insulin through the skin could be a potential alternative for subcutaneous injections. Electroporation was also shown to be useful in noninvasive transcutaneous sampling of drugs and diagnostic analytes. The design of electrodes was found to have significant influence on the skin permeabilization and tolerability of electrical protocol. More research needs to be undertaken to optimize the electroporation protocol, and electrode design before transdermal electroporation could be implemented in clinical practice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery, The University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS, 38677, USA

    Muralikrishnan Angamuthu MS

  2. Institute for Drug Delivery and Biomedical Research, Bangalore, India

    S. Narasimha Murthy PhD

Authors
  1. Muralikrishnan Angamuthu MS
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  2. S. Narasimha Murthy PhD
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Apoteka “Beograd”, Belgrade, Serbia

    Nina Dragicevic

  2. San Francisco, California, USA

    Howard I. Maibach

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Angamuthu, M., Murthy, S.N. (2017). Therapeutic Applications of Electroporation. In: Dragicevic, N., I. Maibach, H. (eds) Percutaneous Penetration Enhancers Physical Methods in Penetration Enhancement. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-53273-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-53273-7_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-53271-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-53273-7

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