Webinar November 2024 – Prof. Teleki

On Wednesday, November 20, 2024, an online seminar on "Microneedles loaded with lipid-based formulations for local treatment of vaginal infections" was held at 3.30 p.m. (CET) / 2.30 p.m. (UTC).

The speaker was Professor Dr. Alexandra Teleki from Uppsala University, Sweden.

If you are interested in the slides of the presentation, please get in touch with us!

Abstract

Vaginal yeast infections, such as vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC), affect nearly three out of four women worldwide. Re-occurrence is frequent and requires repeated treatments with oral, antifungal medications at high doses. Prolonged treatments contribute to development of resistant fungal strains and the risk of systemic adverse effects.

Vaginal drug delivery can overcome several of the disadvantages associated with oral drug administration. However, current dosage forms, such as vaginal creams and gels, are rapidly expelled from the vaginal tract and require daily dosing to assure therapeutic outcome, thus jeopardizing patient compliance.

This presentation will highlight the biological barriers associated with local vaginal drug delivery. We will showcase the potential use of rapidly dissolving microneedle arrays loaded with lipid-based formulations for local vaginal delivery of antifungal drugs. The antifungal activity of the novel delivery system will be demonstrated against the most common VVC fungal strains using an in vitro disk diffusion assay and an explant model from bovine vaginal tissue. Finally, we will present a device prototype that could be used to apply multiple microneedle arrays in the vaginal tract to enable more effective treatment strategies for VVC in the future.