Monitoring the effect of transdermal drug delivery patches on the skin using terahertz sensing

Abstract

Water content of the skin is an important parameter for controlling the penetration rate of chemicals through the skin barrier; therefore, for transdermal patches designed for drug delivery to be successful, the effects of the patches on the water content of the skin must be understood. Terahertz (THz) spectroscopy is a technique which is being increasingly investigated for biomedical applications due to its high sensitivity to water content and non-ionizing nature. In this study, we used THz measurements of the skin (in vivo) to observe the effect of partially and fully occlusive skin patches on the THz response of the skin after the patches had been applied for 24 h. We were able to observe an increase in the water content of the skin following the application of the patches and to identify that the skin remained hyper-hydrated for four hours after the removal of the fully occlusive patches. Herein, we show that THz spectroscopy has potential for increasing the understanding of how transdermal patches affect the skin, how long the skin takes to recover following patch removal, and what implications these factors might have for how transdermal drug patches are designed and used.