Development of Optical Microlens-Microneedle Array for Phototherapy

Abstract

Phototherapy has proven to be one of the most effective treatment options for skin treatment, like eczema, psoriasis, and even skin cancer therapy. However, the bottleneck of current clinical practice is that the relatively low efficiency of light transmission and limited penetration depth of light in skin tissues, due to the complex structure and properties of human skin tissues. Therefore, to develop a device for highly efficient light delivery and deeper light penetration in human skin tissues is expected to facilitate the development of phototherapy.In this study, we develop a device, combining the microneedle and microlens as an effective light delivery array. The microneedles, usually 100〜1000μm in length and less than 50μm in diameter, have received extensive attention as a minimally-invasive and painless approach of transdermal drug delivery in recent years. However, few researchers pay attention to the great application prospects of microneedle in phototherapy when it being combined with microlens as a light delivery device. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop an optical microlens-microneedle array by dissoluble material to improve the efficiency and depth of light delivery through the human skin tissues for phototherapy.