Melanoma therapies delivered through wearable patch

Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that is often caused by too much sun exposure. Conventional melanoma therapies, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, suffer from the toxicity and side effects of repeated treatments due to the aggressive and recurrent nature of melanoma cells.

Microneedles offer pain-free alternative to hypodermic jabs

Less-invasive topical chemotherapies that use polymeric microneedles have emerged, but according to the team’s paper published in ACS Nano, the sustained and long-lasting release of drug cargos remains challenging.

"We developed a novel wearable patch with fully miniaturised needles, enabling unobtrusive drug delivery through the skin for the management of skin cancers," said Chi Hwan Lee, a Purdue assistant professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering. "Uniquely, this patch is fully dissolvable by body fluids in a programmable manner such that the patch substrate is dissolved within one minute after the introduction of needles into the skin, followed by gradual dissolution of the silicon needles inside the tissues within several months."