Paper Info
Title
Evaluation of Laser-Assisted Trans-Nail Drug Delivery with Optical Coherence Tomography.
Abstract
The nail provides a functional protection to the fingertips and surrounding tissue from external injuries. The nail plate consists of three layers including dorsal, intermediate, and ventral layers. The dorsal layer consists of compact, hard keratins, limiting topical drug delivery through the nail. In this study, we investigate the application of fractional CO2 laser that produces arrays of microthermal ablation zones (MAZs) to facilitate drug delivery in the nails. We utilized optical coherence tomography (OCT) for real-time monitoring of the laser-skin tissue interaction, sparing the patient from an invasive surgical sampling procedure. The time-dependent OCT intensity variance was used to observe drug diffusion through an induced MAZ array. Subsequently, nails were treated with cream and liquid topical drugs to investigate the feasibility and diffusion efficacy of laser-assisted drug delivery. Our results show that fractional CO2 laser improves the effectiveness of topical drug delivery in the nail plate and that OCT could potentially be used for in vivo monitoring of the depth of laser penetration as well as real-time observations of drug delivery.
Year
DOI
Venue
2016
10.3390/s16122111
SENSORS
Keywords
Field
DocType
drug delivery,nail,optical coherence tomography,fractional laser,laser ablation
Biomedical engineering,Optical coherence tomography,Ablation,In vivo,Laser,Engineering,Drug delivery,Limiting,Laser ablation,Nail plate
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
16
12.0
1424-8220
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
0
Authors
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Meng-Tsan Tsai101.69
Ting-Yen Tsai200.34
Su-Chin Shen300.34
Chau Yee Ng400.34
Ya-Ju Lee500.68
Jiann-Der Lee621134.02
Chih-Hsun Yang700.34