Nanocarriers for Topical Drug Delivery: Approaches and Advancements

Background: Delivery of drugs through the skin has been an attractive as well as a challenging area for research. Topical drug delivery has provided enormous advantages over the systemic route for various drugs and one of the important amongst them is reduced toxicity due to a minimum or zero exposure to non-target organs. Methods: Various nanocarrier loaded topical preparations including organogels, emulgels, niosomal gel, lyotropic liquid crystal based gels, etc have been investigated for their topical application. Nanocarriers loaded topical preparation have been proven for improved permeation through the cutaneous barrier and delivering the drug at the target site. The objective of this review is to study the recent updates regarding newer topical gel formulations and highlighting their current potential and future scope of the same. Results: The present work has summarized different studies related to nanotechnology derived topical gel formulations and also enlisted few drugs which have been successfully formulated as novel topical gels. Advancement in nanocarriers loaded topical preparations have also been reviewed with their permeation and efficacy compared to conventional formulations. Conclusion: The present review will provide an overview of nanotechnology based topical preparation to the readers and will create curiosity for further development.