When delivering medications to patients, one of the most effective methods is direct injection into the bloodstream using a needle. Now, researchers from China and Switzerland have designed a needle-free alternative: a tiny, drug-filled cup that sticks to the inside of the cheek like an octopus sucker (章鱼吸盘). The device is easily accessible, can be removed at any time and prevents saliva (唾液) from dissolving the drug, which gets absorbed through the lining of the inner cheek.
“Oral delivery is really kind of a holy grail,” says Arturo Vegas, a chemist at Boston University. “It’s still the preferred form of administration for patients… which means higher compliance, better outcomes for the patient, less adverse effects overall.”
Usually, delivering drugs through the dense, inner cheek tissue is not very effective. But the suction cup stretches the cheek, creating a larger surface area for the drug to pass through.
To test the design, the team 3D printed their rubber, 1.1-by 0.6-centimeter suckers. They loaded each with the diabetes drug desmopressin and stuck them inside the cheeks of three beagles (小猎兔犬), which have similar inner cheeks to humans. For comparison, they also delivered the drug to beagles via a pill and via injection. After three hours, the team found that drug plasma concentrations in dogs with the patch were more than 150 times higher than in the dogs that took a tablet.
“We were really impressed by the level of absorption that we would get with such a simple system,” said Jean-Christophe Leroux, a co-author of the study. However, the oral patches were less effective than drugs delivered via injection.
The team further tested the patches by filling them with the drug semaglutide, which has molecules (分子) four times larger than desmopressin does. After 30 minutes, they found that beagles with the patch had a similar amount of semaglutide absorbed by the bloodstream as those that took a tablet.
Though the patches need further testing to determine how repeated use affects patients, the researchers conclude that their technique is “non-invasive, simple and readily self-applicable by patients”.
【小题1】Which of the following is the advantage of the device?| A．It is organic. | B．It is easy to use. |
| C．It is inexpensive. | D．It is free of side effects. |
| A．It is made from a special rubber. | B．It softens the dense, inner cheek tissue. |
| C．It prevents saliva from dissolving the drug. | D．It expands the area for the drug to be absorbed. |
| A．Drug plasma concentrations increase as time goes by. |
| B．The three beagles have similar inner cheeks to each other. |
| C．The device may work better for drugs with small molecules. |
| D．Researchers injected different drugs to beagles in the first test. |
| A．Whether it can be used repeatedly. | B．How it can help patients recover sooner. |
| C．When it can be put into wide application. | D．What can be done to improve its efficiency. |
