Electrically-Assisted Skin Delivery of
Buspirone Submicron Emulsions

Yi-Hung Tsai¹, Jung-Tzu Chang², Chi-Te Huang², Jui-Sheng Chang²,
Yaw-Bin Huang¹ AND Pao-Chu Wu²*

^1. Graduate Institute of Clinical Pharmacy, ^2. School of Pharmacy, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, R.O.C.

(Received: May 5, 2011; Accepted: September 8, 2011)

Abstract

The aim of this study was to demonstrate the potential application of electrically-assisted methods, including iontophoresis and electroporation, on the transdermal delivery of buspirone hydrochloride from a submicron emulsion-based system. The results showed that by applied iontophoresis at 0.5 mA/cm² for 3 h or electroporation at 1 pulse, 300 V, 200 ms, 0.5 min spacing for 10 min, increased the cumulative amount of buspirone at 10 h by 2.4 and 2.1 folds, respectively, compared to passive diffusion. The combination of iontophoresis and electroporation did not show synergistic effects. For long-time application of iontophoresis, the enhancement effect decreased in the later stage due to skin polarization. The duty cycle of current applied was found to increase iontophoretic efficiency. When compared to passive diffusion, the lag time of buspirone-loaded submicron emulsion permeated through skin was shortened from 3 h to 0.5 h with the use of both electrically-assisted methods, indicating that more rapid onset of buspirone could be obtained by using electrically-assisted methods.

Key words: buspirone hydrochloride, submicron emulsion, iontophoresis, electroporation