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Diffusion Cell Design

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Topical Drug Bioavailability, Bioequivalence, and Penetration

Abstract

Diffusion cell devices have made an enormous contribution to basic physiology and the understanding of the transport of substances between two compartments separated by a biological membrane. Although much of the earlier development of such devices was to characterize absorption and secretion in the gut using isolated sheets of gastrointestinal mucosa; diffusion chamber systems have been much more extensively used to measure the dermal absorption of drugs and chemicals using resected skin from animals and humans. The challenge for physiologists when using tissue ex vivo is normally the viability of the specimen, and how this may impact on the function it normally performs in vivo. Fortunately, with skin, the primary barrier to the entry of a substance from the external surface to the living epidermis is a non-viable compacted desquamed structure, the stratum corneum. This makes it a highly suitable tissue for in vitro chamber work. Dermal absorption is essentially the measurement of the mass of a substance transferred across the skin over a specific time period. The chamber device provides key components of the experiment, namely a fixed surface area, a rigid platform for surface dosing, and a seal between the donor and receptor chamber compartments. Its vertical orientation also allows each side of the skin to face different environmental conditions. Various modifications to the basic design of these devices have been developed to improve the prediction of dermal absorption in humans.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Pharmacy, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK

    Jon R. Heylings

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  1. Jon R. Heylings
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Correspondence to Jon R. Heylings .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Pharmaceutical Consultant, North Potomac, Maryland, USA

    Vinod P. Shah

  2. University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, Department of Dermatology, San Francisco, California, USA

    Howard I. Maibach

  3. The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Biomedical Sciences Department, Salisbury, United Kingdom

    John Jenner

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Heylings, J. (2014). Diffusion Cell Design. In: Shah, V., Maibach, H., Jenner, J. (eds) Topical Drug Bioavailability, Bioequivalence, and Penetration. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1289-6_5

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