Using transdermal iontophoresis to increase granisetron delivery across skin in vitro and in vivo: Effect of experimental conditions and a comparison with other enhancement strategies

The objectives of the study were (i) to investigate the effect of experimental parameters on the iontophoretic transport of granisetron, (ii) to identify the relative contributions of electromigration (EM) and electroosmosis (EO), (iii) to determine the feasibility of delivering therapeutic amounts of drug for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and (iv) to test the in vitro results in a simple animal model in vivo. Preliminary in vitro studies using aqueous granisetron formulations investigating the effect of drug concentration (5, 10, 20 and 40 mM) and current density (0.1, 0.2, 0.3 mA cm−2) were performed using porcine ear skin. As expected, cumulative delivery in vitro at the 20 and 40 mM concentrations was significantly greater than that at 5 and 10 mM, which were not statistically different (p < 0.05). Increasing the applied current density from 0.1 to 0.3 mA cm−2 resulted in a ∼4.2-fold increase in iontophoretic flux. Furthermore, in the absence of Na+ in the formulation, no dependence of iontophoretic flux on drug concentration was reported (at a granisetron concentration of 40 mM, the transport rate was 2.93 ± 0.62 μg cm−2 min−1). Co-iontophoresis of acetaminophen was used to show that EM was the predominant transport mechanism accounting for 71–86% of total granisetron delivery. In vivo studies in Wistar rats (40 mM granisetron; application of 0.3 mA cm−2 for 5 h with Ag/AgCl electrodes and salt bridges) showed an average iontophoretic input rate (kinput) of 0.83 ± 0.26 μg min−1 and a maximum plasma concentration (Cmax) of 0.092 ± 0.004 μg ml−1. Based on these results and given the known pharmacokinetics, transdermal iontophoresis could achieve therapeutic drug levels for the management of chemotherapy-induced emesis using a reasonably sized (4–6 cm2) patch.