Transfersomes

In the present study, an attempt was made to develop the transdermal drug delivery systems of Fluvastatin sodium using transfersomes incorporated in a gel, which will control the release of drug, increasing the bioavailability of the drug and thus decreasing the dosing frequency of the drug.  It was designed by encapsulating the drug in various transfersomal formulations composed of various ratios of Soya Lecithin: Span 80 or Tween 80 or sodium deoxycholate. The transfersomes were prepared by rotary evaporation sonication method. Lipid:surfactant ratio of 90:10 is  found to be more effective when compared to other ratios . Experimental results of the present study showed that deformable lipid vesicles improve the transdermal delivery, prolong the release, and improve the site specificity of the Fluvastatin sodium. The drug diffusion studies showed that the prepared transferosome vesicle follows zero order kinetics and mechanism of drug diffusion follows peppas model.

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.