PhD defence L. (Liora) Bik

Dissertation in short:

Keloidal scars or ‘keloids’ are benign nodular tumors of the skin caused by excessive fibroblastic proliferation as a response to local skin injuries such as trauma, acne, surgery or skin piercing. They are associated with considerable negative effects on social, physical and psychological well-being. First-line treatment consist of intralesional corticosteroid injections with hypodermic needles, but has several important drawbacks such as severe injection-related pain and highly variable, operator-dependent success rates. Electronically-controlled pneumatic jet injectors (EPI) have been developed to deliver drugs in the dermis in a standardized, needle-free and less painful manner, while enabling tailored treatment with tunable parameters such as driving pressure and injection volume. In this thesis we explored EPI-assisted dermal drug delivery of bleomycin (chemotherapeutic) as a novel treatment for keloid scars that could potentially lead to a high skin bioavailability, better patient satisfaction, and, ultimately, in higher clinical effectiveness compared to conventional hypodermic needle injections.