Ultra small needles dissolve in the skin

The fear of needles is now only a small thing thanks to a new replacement device invented by researchers at the University of Texas, Dallas (USA).

Under the new method, the drug will still be injected into the body, but with a tiny needle and without causing any pain. The injection is so thin that it melts just under the skin when enough of the drug has been put into the body. Although it does not apply to all, this injection can be given into many drugs made from compounds of small molecular size.

According to the article published in ChemRxiv, the research team explained: injections are produced using 3D FDM printing (fused deposition modeling) . This is a rapid prototyping technology, using CNC-controlled injection molding heads (automatic machining) to make flexible fiber-like materials melted and extruded to create a cross-section of the sample.

The material used to make the needle here is polylactic acid - a thermoplastic resin , biodegradable and certified by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Micro injection is capable of melting under the skin.(Photo: Futurism).

To achieve the desired shape, the injections will be chemically etched after printing. The tip size is small to 1 micrometer (106m) and 400 to 600 micrometer wide. In comparison, human red blood cells are about 5 micrometers in size.

Currently, subcutaneous injections are still considered standard in vaccination, but they can cause pain, and leave ugly bruises without proper operation. At the same time, waste from used injections is also a cause of dangerous biological diseases. Therefore, this micro needle was invented to solve these problems because they are painless, can be used for many objects and do not generate waste.

However, this type of needle still has the disadvantage: although it can be produced at low cost, the equipment needed to serve 3D printing has a high price . However, parafilm and pig skin test results yielded positive results when 84% of the injections were dissolved.