Transfersomes: New Dominants for Transdermal Drug Delivery

With oral and parenteral drug delivery systems, poor patient compliance is a frequent problem in daily clinical practice. So, the transdermal route of drug delivery has gained great interest of pharmaceutical research. But the big hurdle in transdermal delivery of drug is the skin, the stratum corneum, & the outermost envelop of the skin. Recently, various strategies have been used to augment the transdermal delivery of bioactive. Mainly, they include iontophoresis, electrophoresis, sonophoresis, chemical permeation enhancers, micro needles, and vesicular system (liposomes, niosomes, elastic liposomes such as ethosomes and transfersomes). Transfersomes possess an infrastructure consisting of hydrophobic and hydrophilic moieties together and as a result can accommodate drug molecules with wide range of solubility. The high and self-optimizing deformability of typical composite transfersomes membrane, which are adaptable to ambient tress allow the ultra deformable transfersomes to change its membrane composition locally and reversibly, when it is pressed against or attracted into narrow pore. Transfersomes can deform and pass through narrow constriction (from 5 to 10 times less than their own diameter) without measurable loss. This high deformability gives better penetration of intact vesicles. They can act as a carrier for low as well as high molecular weight drugs e.g. analgesic, anesthetic, corticosteroids, sex hormone, anticancer, insulin, gap junction protein, and albumin.