Research Summary
Administration of substances through the skin represents a promising alternative to other drug administration routes due to its large body surface area, offering ideal and multiple sites for drug administration. In addition, administering drugs through the skin avoids first-pass metabolism, allowing an increase in the bioavailability of drugs while reducing their side effects.
However, the stratum corneum (SC) comprises the main barrier of protection against external agents, mainly due to its structure, composition, and physicochemical properties, which becomes the main limitation for the administration of substances through the skin. In view of the above, pharmaceutical technology has allowed the development of multiple drug delivery systems (DDS), which include liquid crystals (LC), cubosomes, liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles (PNP), nanoemulsions (NE), as well as cyclodextrins (CD) and dendrimers (DND).
The DDS appears to circumvent the problems of drug absorption through the SC layer of the skin, ensuring the release of the drug while optimizing the therapeutic effect locally. This review aims to highlight the DDS that include LC, cubosomes, lipid systems, PNP, as well as CD and DND, to optimize topical skin therapies.
Keywords: Liquid crystals, cubosomes, liposomes, nanoemulsions, cyclodextrins, dendrimers, skin applications.
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