Nobody likes injections, but with certain diseases it is necessary to undergo injections several times a day. Scientists work on the problem of reducing the pain caused by injections.
Japanese scientists have developed the finest needle for a 2mm diameter syringe. While injecting, it makes but a small cut and practically does not cause pain. The medical equipment company "Termo" which has created this needle promises that it is quite possible for a patient not to feel any pain at all.
The most important problem in developing superfine needles for syringes was providing a stable run of a liquid medicine. But the company's specialists managed to solve this problem by using super quality treatment of the internal channel of the needle.
But one fine needle, even if it has an ideally treated channel, will pass medicine very slowly. Two American engineers from the Institute of Technology of Georgia propose to combine hundreds of silicon microneedles for giving injections.
Four hundred hollow needles, manufactured by the same method as electron microcircuits, project from a 2.5x2.5mm silicon plane. If an automatic pump-dispenser is attached to this "shredder" and the produced device is attached to the skin (for instance, shaped into a watch or even built in a watch), it will gradually inject a necessary amount of medicine into the skin without causing any disagreeable sensations to a patient. The medicine will gradually penetrate deeper to be absorbed by blood.
In addition, the new device for giving injections ensures the drop-bottle effect - medicine is injected slowly and in doses.