Microneedles are designed to penetrate skin and capillaries without causing pain or the need for medical expertise, so that diagnosis and treatment can be administered at point-of-care 1. Microneedle devices offer an alternative to the hypodermic needle for blood extraction and injection of drugs. Future work will address development of open-channel microfluidics for drug delivery, fluid sampling and analysis. The manufacturing advantages are (a) direct printing from computer-aided design (CAD) drawing without the constraints imposed by subtractive machining or etching processes, (b) high-fidelity replication of prototype geometries with multiple reuses of elastomeric molds, (c) shorter manufacturing time compared to three-dimensional stereolithography, and (d) integration of microneedles with open-channel microfluidics. Thermoplastic replicas are manufactured from these templates by soft-embossing with high fidelity at submicron resolution.
Prototype microneedles with open microfluidic channels are fabricated by laser stereolithography. This paper reports a novel manufacturing method that may overcome the complexity of hollow microneedle fabrication. However, to date, large-scale manufacture of hollow microneedles has been limited by the cost and complexity of microfabrication techniques. Microneedles with submicron to millimeter features have been fabricated from materials such as metals, silicon, and polymers by subtractive machining or etching.
Development of microneedles for unskilled and painless collection of blood or drug delivery addresses the quality of healthcare through early intervention at point-of-care.
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