New Injectable Hydrogel Delivers Drugs Without Surgery
20th February 2015
To treat certain types of medical conditions, such as some forms of vision loss or cancer, patients have to receive drugs through periodic injections. These doctor visits can be time-consuming—sometimes happening once per week—and demoralizing, and the drugs affect the whole body instead of the place where they’re most needed, decreasing their efficacy.
To solve these problems, chemical engineers have been developing different types of hydrogels, squishy 3D substances made of water and chains of synthetic molecules that can release medication slowly over time to a specific part of the body. The problem is that the gels need to be inside the body to release the drugs, and most can tear easily so they have to be delicately placed in the body through surgery.