Fuente: Polymers Polymers, Vol. 18, Pages 123: Integrating Polymeric 3D-Printed Microneedles with Wearable Devices: Toward Smart and Personalized Healthcare Solutions
Polymers doi: 10.3390/polym18010123
Authors:
Mahmood Razzaghi

Wearable healthcare is shifting from passive tracking to active, closed-loop care by integrating polymeric three-dimensional (3D)-printed microneedle arrays (MNAs) with soft electronics and wireless modules. This review surveys the design, materials, and the manufacturing routes that enable skin-conformal MNA wearables for minimally invasive access to the interstitial fluid and precise but localized drug delivery. Looking ahead, the converging advances in multimaterial printing, nano/biofunctional coatings, and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven control are promising “wearable clinics” that can personalize monitoring and therapy in real time, thus accelerating the translation of MNA-integrated wearables from laboratory prototypes to clinically robust, patient-centric systems. Overall, this review identifies a clear transition from proof-of-concept MNA devices toward integrated, wearable, and closed-loop therapeutic platforms. Key challenges remain in scalable manufacturing, drug dose limitations, long-term stability, and regulatory translation. Addressing these gaps through advances in hollow MNA architectures, system integration, and standardized evaluation protocols is expected to accelerate clinical adoption. However, the realization of closed-loop wearable MNA-based systems remains constrained by challenges related to power consumption, real-time data latency, and the need for robust clinical validation.