Emerging topical drug delivery approaches for the treatment of Atopic dermatitis
Shruti Ghosalkar, Prabha Singh, Padmini Ravikumar
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Atopic dermatitis is a chronic, relapsing skin inflammation disease that generally affects 20% of children and 1-3% of adults. It is characterized by pruritus, inflammatory skin lesions, and skin barrier defect. The pillar treatment is topical therapies that have shown great adherence and incredible results in alleviating symptoms of atopic dermatitis. Topical corticosteroids and calcineurin inhibitors have shown improvement in the symptoms of atopic dermatitis but have certain side effects. There is need to develop new therapies or novel drug delivery approaches which can overcome drawbacks of the conventional formulation and increase the therapeutic efficacy. AIM: The scope of this review is to describe the new topical therapies including phosphodiesterase inhibitors, Janus kinase inhibitors, and nano-formulations such as nanoemulsion, polymeric and lipid nanoparticles, vesicular system, and micelles. METHODS: The article reviews and discusses the published literature of the topical drug delivery approaches for treatment of Atopic dermatitis. RESULTS: The reported literature highlighted the benefits of novel topical formulations exhibiting targeted drug delivery, better penetration, enhanced therapeutic efficacy, and overcome systemic side effects. CONCLUSION: Literature indicated that the new therapies and novel drug delivery approaches found to be the therapeutically more effective in increasing the efficacy of drugs and reducing the side effects in comparison with the conventional treatments for Atopic dermatitis. This has provided a way to modify and develop more such formulations for dermal delivery.