A Review of Transdermal Drug Delivery Using Nano-Vesicular Carriers: Transfersomes

Transfersomes are specific deformable vesicles, which are being developed, considering the advantage of phospho-lipids vesicles, for suitable delivery of drug. These are highly elastic in nature, as such they could easily overcome the skin penetration, by squeezing themselves in a self-adapting manner. Also they possess a unique ability to get accommodated with a wide range of solubility and act as an efficient carriers for both low as well as high molecular weight drugs, e.g. analgesic, corticosteroids, hormones, anticancer drugs, insulin, proteins etc with high entrapment efficiency & a unique advantage of protection of the encapsulated drug, from metabolic degradation. However, their major disadvantage arises due to their chemical instability and high susceptibility to oxidative degradation. Transfersomes could be easily prepared using various processes - suspension homogenization process, aqueous lipid suspension process, modified handshaking process and centrifugation process. Transfersomes’ inherent potential advantages are highly utilized in ‘Transdermal Immunization’, ‘Peripheral Drug Targeting’ & for ‘Transdermal Delivery ‘of Insulin, NSAIDs, Heparin, Anti Cancer drugs, etc. Various patent applications have been admitted, using Transfersomes for various applications, e.g., ‘Transcutaneous Administration’ of Antigens, Delivery of larger molecules across nasal mucosa, Intra- Epithelial delivery of chemical agents, Delivery of biologically active drugs, delivery of DNA using lipid vesicles, etc. Recently, marketing approval of Drug ‘diractin’ using ketoprofen has gained its significance for Transferosomal delivery of the drug.