Can Microneedles Revolutionize Ocular Drug Delivery?

The anterior and posterior segments of the eye are extremely difficult to reach and treat, due to their barrier properties and inaccessibility of the ocular tissues. Given that traditional drug delivery systems, such as topical eye drops, or hypodermic needles, possess many disadvantages such as causing pain, and discomfort or resulting in low drug bioavailability, microneedles (MNs) are recently proposed as minimally invasive drug delivery systems for treating ocular diseases. These systems enable the localization of drugs within the ocular tissue, while on the other hand being painless. Given that MNs will definitely change how eye medication formulations are delivered in the future, this work aimed to summarize the previous studies on the potential of using microneedles as drug delivery systems for treating ocular diseases and outline the future aspect of MNs production technologies.