Method and apparatus for skin absorption enhancement and transdermal drug delivery
AssigneeMattioli Engineering Ltd.
InventorGian Franco Bernabei
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for transdermal drug delivery to be provided to a patient's skin, includes performing a dermabrasion treatment of the patient's skin so as to lower a skin impedance to below a first value. It also includes providing at least one burst of electrical pulses to the patient's skin that has been dermabrasion treated, wherein each pulses in the at least one burst of electrical pulses is stabilized with respect to a current amount.
Claims8
An apparatus for performing transdermal drug delivery to be provided to a patient's skin, comprising:
- a measuring unit configured to measure a skin impedance of the patient's skin and to obtain a skin impedance value;
- and
- a transformer configured to create at least one burst of electrical pulses to be provided to the patient's skin, wherein each of the pulses in the at least one burst of electrical pulses is stabilized with respect to an amount of current, based on the skin impedance value;
- at least one electrode configured to receive the at least one burst of electrical pulses from the transformer and to provide the at least one burst of electrical pulses to the patient's skin;
- and
- a processor configured to receive a measured rms voltage corresponding to the at least one burst of electrical pulses, a measured rms current corresponding to the at least one burst of electrical pulses, and to divide the rms voltage by the rms current to obtain the skin impedance value,
- wherein the at least one burst of electrical pulses is stabilized with respect to the amount of current by way of a resistor disposed between a primary winding of the transformer and a supply voltage potential with no other elements provided therebetween.
A method for performing transdermal drug delivery to a patient's skin, comprising:
- providing, by way of a probe, a plurality of bursts of electronic pulses to the patient's skin at a same time a drug is applied to the patient's skin;
- stabilizing the plurality of bursts of electronic pulses by virtue of a disposition of a resistor provided between a supply voltage potential and a primary winding of a transformer that outputs the plurality of bursts of electronic pulses with no other elements provided therebetween;
- and
- in between the providing of the plurality of bursts of electronic pulses to the patient's skin, applying either alternate-polarity square pulses or sinusoidal pulses to the patient's skin.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.