Abstract
There is considerable interest in the skin as a site of anti-cancer drug application. Nevertheless, the skin poses a formidable barrier to drug penetration, thereby limiting topical and transdermal bioavailability. However, we previously showed that a thioglycolate-based depilatory agent increases the drug permeability of mouse skin. In the present report, we investigated the skin permeability and efficacy of the anti-cancer drug adriamycin increased when administered transdermally to mice in combination with a thioglycolate-based depilatory agent. Adriamycin in combination with depilatory treatment reduced Ehrlich tumor growth in hairless mice about the weight and size of harvested tumors. In addition, our delivery method for adriamycin increased the therapeutic effectiveness of this agent by decreasing toxicity. Moreover, measurement of adriamycin autofluorescence revealed that topically applied adriamycin penetrate the dermis after depilatory agent treatment. These results indicate that the transdermal delivery of anti-cancer drugs is feasible by handy pretreatment of the skin with a thioglycolate-based depilatory agent.
Highlights
Oral and intravenous administration are the two main drug delivery routes for anti-cancer drugs.the skin is the largest organ in the body and an obvious route for both local and systemic drug delivery
We previously showed that the skin permeability of gentamicin increased when combined with a thioglycolate-based depilatory agent [4]
The anti-cancer effects of adriamycin with the depilatory treatment were evaluated by the inhibition of tumor growth, which was determined by comparing the weight and size of harvested tumors from hairless mice after 21-day treatment
Summary
Oral and intravenous administration are the two main drug delivery routes for anti-cancer drugs. Tamer et al [9] reported that the active targeting of the long-circulating liposomal preparations of adriamycin with the anti-tumor antibody presents an attractive opportunity to further control the in vivo behavior of the original drug and improve its tolerability. Vesicular systems such as liposomes, niosomes, ethosomes and elastic, deformable vesicles provide an alternative for improved skin drug delivery [10]. We investigated whether thioglycolate-based depilatory agent-treatment increases the skin permeability of adriamycin and its anti-tumor activity for Ehrlich carcinoma cells grown underneath the skin. To determine the efficacy of our depilatory method, the distribution of adriamycin applied as a cream to hairless mice were examined based on adriamycin autofluorescence by fluorescence microscope
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