New Way to Anesthetize Skin in Five Minutes

A 15-second treatment by a new ultrasonic device followed by an application of lidocaine cream can anesthetize the skin in only five minutes, in contrast to lidocaine alone, which takes an hour to work.

The device, called SonoPrep, applies low-frequency ultrasonic energy to the skin. The sound waves open small cavities in the skin by disorganizing the lipid bi-layer, creating tiny, reversible channels through which fluids can be extracted and delivered. Within 24 hours, the skin reverts back to its normal state. The battery-operated unit, now cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), was developed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Boston, USA) and is being manufactured and marketed by Sontra Medical Corp. (Franklin, MA, USA), formed by the same scientists.

Because the method is simple and painless, it could become standard procedure in hospitals and doctors' offices, which already use lidocaine, and would be a boon for children and critically ill patients who endure repeated needlesticks. Also, the method could be useful before procedures such as angiography, balloon angioplasty, and the insertion of venous catheters.

"The best thing is that approval of this device opens the door to many new uses, such as glucose-sensing or insulin delivery for diabetics,” noted Robert Langer, professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at MIT, who developed the device along with colleagues Joseph Kost and Professor Daniel Blankschtein of MIT's department of chemical engineering and Samir Mitragotri, now on the faculty of the University of California at Santa Barbara (USA).




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