Modeling of Microneedle Arrays in Transdermal Drug Delivery Applications

Abstract

The use of computational tools for the development of technologies in fields such as medicine and engineering has facilitated the process of designing new components and devices for these areas. In this work, two proposals focused on a hollow microneedle array (MNA) for the administration of an analgesic drug are shown and evaluated by means of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation distributed in three stages. In the first stage, the behavior of lidocaine through the MNA was evaluated as a workflow. Then, the possible entry of the drug into the organism, which was established as a porous aqueous medium, was modeled. Finally, a joint simulation was performed to understand the general behavior in the interaction between the outflow of an MNA and the body to which lidocaine is administered. The input parameters to the simulation were set at a velocity of 0.05 m∙s−1, at a pressure of 2000 Pa, the dominant behavior was defined as laminar flow, and a resistive pressure at the inlet of 400 Pa. Our results indicate that the vertical flow exhibits a better fluid distribution across the MNAs and favorable infiltration behavior, representing better delivery of the analgesic to the skin capillaries.