The pain felt during injection, typically delivered via a hypodermic needle as a single bolus, is associated with the pressure build-up around the site of injection. It is hypothesized that this counterpressure is a function of the target tissue as well as fluid properties. Given that novel vaccines target different tissues (muscle, adipose, and skin) and can exhibit a wide range of fluid properties, we conducted a study of the effect of volumetric flow rate, needle size, viscosity and rheology of fluid, and hyaluronidase as an adjuvant on counterpressure build-up in porcine skin and muscle tissues. In particular, we found a significant increase in counterpressure for intradermal (ID) injections compared to intramuscular (IM) injections, by an order of magnitude in some cases. We also showed that the addition of adjuvant affected the tissue back pressure only in case of subcutaneous (SC) injections. We observed that the volumetric flow rate plays an important role along with the needle size. This study aims to improve the current understanding and limitations of liquid injectability via hypodermic needles, however, the results also have implications for other technologies, such as intradermal jet injection where a liquid bleb is formed under the skin.
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Effect of air pockets in drug delivery via jet injections
Needle-free jet injections are actuated by a pressure impulse that can be delivered by different mechanisms to generate high-speed jets (Vj ∼ 102 m/s). During filling and transportation of disposable cartridges and ampoules, bubbles can form, which can be problematic especially for viscous fluids. Here, we report on the effect of location and size of entrapped air pockets in cartridges used in spring-powered jet injections. As air bubbles pass through the orifice, they undergo depressurization, which results in intermittent atomization and spray formation, temporarily increasing the jet dispersion. Atomization and dispersion of the jet can lead to product loss during an injection. We find that the effect of bubble location on the jet exit speed, delivery efficiency, and the projected area of the blebs formed after the injection was statistically significant (p < 0.05). The findings of this study have implications for the development of pre-filled cartridges for jet injection applications.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1749382
- PAR ID:
- 10312994
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International journal of pharmaceutics
- Volume:
- 602
- ISSN:
- 0378-5173
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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