Transfersomes: A Novel Vesicular Drug Delivery System for Enhanced Permeation through Skin

Abstract

Transdermal drug delivery systems are showing great improvement in delivering drugs as their advantages overweigh the disadvantages. Transfersomes are vesicular drug delivery systems which are used to enhance the penetration ability of drugs in a non-invasive manner. They have the ability to shrink themselves from 5 to 10 times less than their own diameter and reform in order to pass through a narrow pore. In this review we have discussed about transfersomes, their mechanism to easily penetrate skin by overcoming the barriers present in stratum corneum as well as the methods used in preparation of transfersomes along with their evaluation parameters involved. This newer approach to deliver drugs has got various applications in different fields. Some of their applications include delivery of: Transdermal immunization, NSAIDS, Herbal drugs, Corticosteroids and Interferons. Apart from these they prove to be a great carrier of high molecular weight proteins and insulin in case of diabetic patients. Recently, They are widely studied for their use in treatment of various cancer. Hence in our review, it was observed that transfersomes prove to a be a very good carrier for drugs when compared to liposomal drug delivery system.