The goal of this work was to study
the printability of PDMS with a semi-solid extrusion printer in
combination with the UV-assisted crosslinking technology using UV-LED
light to manufacture drug containing structures. Structures with
different pore sizes and different drug loadings were prepared
containing prednisolone as a model drug.

The work showed that it was possible to print drug-free and drug-loaded drug delivery
devices of PDMS with the 3D printing technique used in this study. The
required UV-curing time to get sufficient crosslinking yield and
mechanical strength was minimum three minutes. The microgram drug release
from the printed structures was highest for the most drug loaded
structures regardless of the porosity of the devices. By altering the
surface area/volume ratio it was possible to print structures with
differences in the release rate.

This study shows
that room-temperature semi-solid extrusion printing 3D printing
technique in combination with UV-LED crosslinking is an applicable
method in the production of prednisolone containing PDMS devices. Both
the extrusion 3D printing and the UV-crosslinking was done at room
temperature, which make this manufacturing method an interesting
alternative for manufacturing controlled release devices containing temperature susceptible drugs.