Topical drug delivery strategies for enhancing drug effectiveness by skin barriers, drug delivery systems and individualized dosing

Lin Zhao; Jiamei Chen; Bai Bai; Guili Song; Jingwen Zhang; Han Yu; Shiwei Huang; Zhang Wang; Guanghua Lu

doi:10.3389/fphar.2023.1333986

Topical drug delivery strategies for enhancing drug effectiveness by skin barriers, drug delivery systems and individualized dosing

Front Pharmacol. 2024 Jan 16:14:1333986. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2023.1333986. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Lin Zhao^{1

2}, Jiamei Chen^{1

3}, Bai Bai^{1

2}, Guili Song^{1

2}, Jingwen Zhang^{1

2}, Han Yu^{1

3}, Shiwei Huang^{1

3}, Zhang Wang^{1

2}, Guanghua Lu^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Southwestern Chinese Medicine Resources, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China.
² School of Ethnic Medicine, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China.
³ School of Pharmacy, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China.

Abstract

Topical drug delivery is widely used in various diseases because of the advantages of not passing through the gastrointestinal tract, avoiding gastrointestinal irritation and hepatic first-pass effect, and reaching the lesion directly to reduce unnecessary adverse reactions. The skin helps the organism to defend itself against a huge majority of external aggressions and is one of the most important lines of defense of the body. However, the skin's strong barrier ability is also a huge obstacle to the effectiveness of topical medications. Allowing the bioactive, composition in a drug to pass through the stratum corneum barrier as needed to reach the target site is the most essential need for the bioactive, composition to exert its therapeutic effect. The state of the skin barrier, the choice of delivery system for the bioactive, composition, and individualized disease detection and dosing planning influence the effectiveness of topical medications. Nowadays, enhancing transdermal absorption of topically applied drugs is the hottest research area. However, enhancing transdermal absorption of drugs is not the first choice to improve the effectiveness of all drugs. Excessive transdermal absorption enhances topical drug accumulation at non-target sites and the occurrence of adverse reactions. This paper introduces topical drug delivery strategies to improve drug effectiveness from three perspectives: skin barrier, drug delivery system and individualized drug delivery, describes the current status and shortcomings of topical drug research, and provides new directions and ideas for topical drug research.

Keywords: drug delivery; drug effectiveness; individualized dosing; skin barriers; topical drug.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from Sichuan Provincial Drug Administration Chinese Medicine (Ethnomedicine) Standard Enhancement Project (Second) (No. 510201201904914).