Abstract
Transdermal drug delivery has the potential to be a non-invasive, convenient and safe method of delivering drugs at steady or time-varying rates (1). However, the extension of passive transdermal delivery to a large number of drugs has been limited by the natural barrier properties of the stratum corneum. Conventional passive transdermal therapy is only applicable to small, potent and lipophilic solutes. In addition, transport across skin is very slow so that lag times of hours are necessary to attain steady-state fluxes. Recently, the application of short high-voltage pulses to skin has been shown to increase transdermal transport by several orders of magnitude on a timescale of minutes (2–4). The underlying mechanism is hypothesized to involve electroporation of the stratum corneum lipid bilayers (5–6). This report gives an overall picture of transdermal drug delivery using skin electroporation. The enhancement in molecular transport, the mechanisms involved and the control achieved on this transport are reviewed. Tolerance issue is discussed.
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