Assessment of the efficacy of drug transdermal delivery by electro-phonophoresis in treating tuberculous lymphadenitis

AbstractElectro-phonophoresis (EP) has been used in various clinical fields. The objective of present study is to evaluate the skin permeability of isoniazid (INH) and rifampicin (RIF) in patients with tuberculous lymphadenitis with the aid of EP to validate the clinical applications of this transdermal delivery system for the treatment of superficial extrapulmonary tuberculosis. INH and RIF solutions were delivered transdermally, with or without EP, in the surrounding tissue of the lesion for 0.5 h. Local pyogenic fluids or necrotic tissue samples from the infection sites in patients were collected at 1 h after dosing. Drug concentrations in samples were evaluated by high performance liquid chromatography. The median INH and RIF intra-lesional concentrations were 0.365 (interquartile range [IQR] 0.185–1.775) μg/mL and 1.231 (IQR 0.304–1.836) μg/mL in oral group; 2.964 (IQR 0.193–7.325) μg/mL and 2.646 (IQR 1.211–3.753) μg/mL in INH- and RIF-transdermal plus EP group. Drug concentrations in the local site...