Microneedles in Ocular Drug Delivery

Background

The complex pathological conditions of the eye require precise treatment procedures that demand the exact concentration of the drugs to be present at the site of action at therapeutic levels. However, the current treatment options available to us couldn’t fulfil this requirement successfully. For example, topical formulations have issues such as low bioavailability, systemic toxicity, etc. The intravitreal injections could deliver drugs with acceptable precision, but they are extremely painful, have very low patient compliance, and cause severe complications such as retinal detachment, retinal vein occlusion, bleeding, tissue damage, and infections. Diabetic patients who have retinopathy require chronic care, thus none of the options prove to be a viable treatment. The use of microneedle could open doors to a more refined form of ocular drug delivery by allowing precisely targeted drug delivery which could be sustained for a prolonged time. It will provide painless, self-administrable treatment options to diabetic retinopathy patients.