Transdermal Drug delivery: A step towards treatment of cancer

Background: Transdermal drug delivery is an emerging and tempting system over oral and hypodermic drug delivery system. With the new developments in skin penetration techniques, anticancer drugs ranging from hydrophilic macromolecules to lipophilic drugs can be administered via transdermal route to treat cancer. Objective: In the present review, various approaches to enhance the transdermal delivery of drugs is discussed including the micro and nanotechnology based transdermal formulations like chemotherapy, gene therapy, immunotherapy, phototherapy, vaccines and medical devices. Limitations and advantages of various transdermal technologies is also elaborated. Method: In this review, patent applications and recent literature of transdermal drug delivery systems employed to cure mainly cancer are covered. Results: Transdermal drug delivery systems have proved their potential to cure cancer. They increase the bioavailability of drug by site specific drug delivery and can reduce the side effects/toxicity associated with anticancer drugs. Conclusion: The potential of transdermal drug delivery systems to carry the drug may unclutter novel ways for therapeutic intercessions in various tumors.

Novel Nanoproniosomal Vesicular carriers for the effective and efficient Drug Delivery: Fundamentals, Recent Advancements and Applications

Nanotechnology is an emerging technology that has brought the upheaval reforms in the domain of pharmaceutical sciences including the development of nanovesicular drug delivery carriers such as proniosomes, niosomes, liposomes, ethosomes, etc. Among them, proniosomes become superior and they surmount the problems of other vesicular carriers. Proniosomes are nano-sized vesicular structures of dry, free-flowing powder (or) gel with encapsulation of drugs in the vesicle that produce multilamellar niosomal dispersion after hydration and they possess the capacity to enhance solubility, permeability and bioavailability of diverse drugs. Proniosomes are suitable to deliver the drugs efficiently through transdermal route to accomplish controlled release action, increased therapeutic effectiveness to various diseases and upon application to the skin, the proniosmes are modified into niosomes in situ by hydration of water from the skin. This study aims to discuss different aspects of proniosomes such as merits, mechanism, types, components, preparation, characterization, drug release, market scenario, future trends and to explore proniosomes for various pharmaceutical applications in drug delivery via different routes, such as topical, transdermal, oral, parenteral, ocular, vaginal, nebulizer and intranasal routes. These proniosomes-derived niosomes are better and may offer an excellent, inexpensive alternative delivery, much more beneficial than other vesicular and conventional dosage forms.

Transferosomes a New Transformation in Research: A Review

The drugs mostly present are available with less bioavailability and the problem arises with less permeation or solubility so extensive work is done to enhance these mechanisms. Not only that drugs should pass hepatic metabolism, Inorder to improve its bioavailability they are formulated as transferosomes which can improve the patient compliance by delivering the drug through the transdermal-route. Soya lecithin is used as a phospholipid whereas Tween 60, Tween 80, Span 60 and Span 80 are used as edge activators. These formulations usually showed more entrapment efficiency. The reason behind this is due to the presence of more phospholipids and as the surfactant concentration increases drug release will be rapid. As our main aim is to enhance the bioavailability this can be achieved by optimizing the concentrations of phospholipid and surfactant one can attain a controlled release of drug through this drug delivery system.

Recent Advances in Microneedle Platforms for Transdermal Drug Delivery Technologies

In many clinical applications, the transdermal route is used as an alternative approach to avoid the significant limitations associated with oral drug delivery. There is a long history for drug delivery through the skin utilizing transdermal microneedle arrays. Microneedles are reported to be versatile and very efficient devices. This technique has spurred both industrial and scientific curiosity, due to its outstanding characteristics such as painless penetration, affordability, excellent medicinal efficiency, and relative protection. Microneedles possess outstanding properties for diverse biomedical uses such as the delivery of very large substances with ionic and hydrophilic physicochemical properties. Importantly, microneedles are applicable in numerous biomedical fields such as therapy, diagnosis, and vaccine administration. Microneedles are emerging tools that have shown profound potential for biomedical applications. Transdermal microneedle technologies are likely to become a preferred route of therapeutic substances administration in the future since they are effective, painless, and affordable. In this review, we summarize recent advances in microneedles for therapeutic applications. We explore their constituent materials and fabrication methods that improve the delivery of critical therapeutic substances through the skin. We further discuss the practicality of advanced microneedles used as drug delivery tools.

Topical transdermal chemoprevention of breast cancer: where will nanomedical approaches deliver us?

Despite the high incidence of breast cancer, there are few pharmacological prevention strategies for the high-risk population and those that are available have low adherence. Strategies that deliver drugs directly to the breasts may increase drug local concentrations, improving efficacy, safety and acceptance. The skin of the breast has been proposed as an administration route for local transdermal therapy, which may improve drug levels in the mammary tissue, due to both deep local penetration and percutaneous absorption. In this review, we discuss the application of nanotechnology-based strategies for the delivery of well established and new agents as well as drug repurposing using the topical transdermal route to improve the outcomes of preventive therapy for breast cancer.

Formulation and Evaluation of Transferosomes Loaded with an Anti-Hyperlipidemic Drug

The primary goal of this research is to create transferosome formulations that contain an anti-hyperlipidemic medication. Simvastatin, the medication employed in the formulation, has a low bioavailability of 60% and undergoes substantial hepatic degradation. These are the deformable nano-vesicles which can deliver both hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs through transdermal route to enhance the Bioavailability of drugs which undergoes extensive hepatic metabolism when given through oral route which can increase patient compliance. Transferosomes are prepared and characterized by various evaluation tests like SEM analysis, vesicular size, surface morphology. After all evaluations done, Out of 12 formulations F2 formulation showed more entrapment efficiency. The reason for this is that there are more phospholipids present, and as the surfactant concentration rises, medication release becomes more rapid. Our main goal is to improve bioavailability, which can be accomplished by optimising the concentrations of phospholipid and surfactant in this drug delivery system, resulting in a controlled release of drug.

Transdermal Delivery of Chemotherapeutics: Strategies, Requirements, and Opportunities

Chemotherapeutic drugs are primarily administered to cancer patients via oral or parenteral routes. The use of transdermal drug delivery could potentially be a better alternative to decrease the dose frequency and severity of adverse or toxic effects associated with oral or parenteral administration of chemotherapeutic drugs. The transdermal delivery of drugs has shown to be advantageous for the treatment of highly localized tumors in certain types of breast and skin cancers. In addition, the transdermal route can be used to deliver low-dose chemotherapeutics in a sustained manner. The transdermal route can also be utilized for vaccine design in cancer management, for example, vaccines against cervical cancer. However, the design of transdermal formulations may be challenging in terms of the conjugation chemistry of the molecules and the sustained and reproducible delivery of therapeutically efficacious doses. In this review, we discuss the nano-carrier systems, such as nanoparticles, liposomes, etc., used in recent literature to deliver chemotherapeutic agents. The advantages of transdermal route over oral and parenteral routes for popular chemotherapeutic drugs are summarized. Furthermore, we also discuss a possible in silico approach, Formulating for Efficacy™, to design transdermal formulations that would probably be economical, robust, and more efficacious.

Enhancing Permeation of Drug Molecules Across the Skin via Delivery in Nanocarriers: Novel Strategies for Effective Transdermal Applications

The transdermal route of administration provides numerous advantages over conventional routes i.e., oral or injectable for the treatment of different diseases and cosmetics applications. The skin also works as a reservoir, thus deliver the penetrated drug for more extended periods in a sustained manner. It reduces toxicity and local irritation due to multiple sites for absorption and owes the option of avoiding systemic side effects. However, the transdermal route of delivery for many drugs is limited since very few drugs can be delivered at a viable rate using this route. The stratum corneum of skin works as an effective barrier, limiting most drugs’ penetration posing difficulty to cross through the skin. Fortunately, some non-invasive methods can significantly enhance the penetration of drugs through this barrier. The use of nanocarriers for increasing the range of available drugs for the transdermal delivery has emerged as a valuable and exciting alternative. Both the lipophilic and hydrophilic drugs can be delivered via a range of nanocarriers through the stratum corneum with the possibility of having local or systemic effects to treat various diseases. In this review, the skin structure and major obstacle for transdermal drug delivery, different nanocarriers used for transdermal delivery, i.e., nanoparticles, ethosomes, dendrimers, liposomes, etc., have been discussed. Some recent examples of the combination of nanocarrier and physical methods, including iontophoresis, ultrasound, laser, and microneedles, have also been discussed for improving the therapeutic efficacy of transdermal drugs. Limitations and future perspectives of nanocarriers for transdermal drug delivery have been summarized at the end of this manuscript.

BI-GELS: A NOVEL MATERIAL FOR TRANSDERMAL DRUG DELIVERY

Bi-gels semi solid formulation is combination of organogel and hydrogel with better application property such as pharmaceutical and cosmetics. The main objective of this review is specially focuses on application of bi-gels as drug delivery vehicles by transdermal route. It contains two different phases which are polar and nonpolar due to which, it possess some significant features such as ability to deliver the hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs which also have improved permeability of drugs, better spreading ability, and water wash ability. Hence, bigels have both organogels and hydrogels they can enhanced hydration of stratum corneum and also had an ability to manipulate the drug release rate from the dosage from.