Abstract
Skin cancer, one of the most prevalent cancers worldwide, has demonstrated an alarming increase in prevalence and mortality. Hence, it is a public health issue and a high burden of disease, contributing to the economic burden in its treatment. There are multiple treatment options available for skin cancer, ranging from chemotherapy to surgery. However, these conventional treatment modalities possess several limitations, urging the need for the development of an effective and safe treatment for skin cancer that could provide targeted drug delivery and site-specific tumor penetration and minimize unwanted systemic toxicity. Therefore, it is vital to understand the critical biological barriers involved in skin cancer therapeutics for the optimal development of the formulations. Various nanocarriers for targeted delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs have been developed and extensively studied to overcome the limitations faced by topical conventional dosage forms. A site-specific vesicular drug delivery system appears to be an attractive strategy in topical drug delivery for the treatment of skin malignancies. In this review, vesicular drug delivery systems, including liposomes, niosomes, ethosomes, and transfersomes in developing novel drug delivery for skin cancer therapeutics, are discussed. Firstly, the prevalence statistics, current treatments, and limitations of convention dosage form for skin cancer treatment are discussed. Then, the common type of nanocarriers involved in the research for skin cancer treatment are summarized. Lastly, the utilization of vesicular drug delivery systems in delivering chemotherapeutics is reviewed and discussed, along with their beneficial aspects over other nanocarriers, safety concerns, and clinical aspects against skin cancer treatment.
Highlights
Permeation studies indicated that the permeation ability across skin increased significantly when TD is present in liposomes encapsulating Vem, as compared to drug solution
When applied topically on the skin, the formulation was safe and showed no significant adverse effects [75]. It displayed desired antitumor ability as there was a decrease in concentration of encapsulated tumors treated with Vem–TD–Lip group compared to the control groups
Several drawbacks from the current topical treatments, such as poor skin penetration, frequent and prolonged applications, severe skin irritation when topically applied over large skin areas, and nontargeted drug delivery, have led to poor patient adherence to therapy
Summary
Skin Cancer and Skin Cancer Prevalence Statistics. Skin is known as the most prominent human body organ with approximately 1.8 m2 surface area. Skin mainly serves as a protective barrier against ultraviolet (UV) radiation, mechanical injury, chemicals, and microorganisms [1,2]. When the cells within the skin epidermis undergo neoplastic changes, this results in skin cancer [1]. Skin cancer is one of the most common types of cancer, especially among Caucasians [2,3,4]
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