New Insights in Topical Drug Delivery for Skin Disorders: From a Nanotechnological Perspective

Skin, the largest organ in humans, is an efficient route for the delivery of drugsas it circumvents several disadvantages of the oral and parenteral routes. These advantages ofskin have fascinated researchers in recent decades. Drug delivery via a topical route includesmoving the drug from a topical product to a locally targeted region with dermal circulationthroughout the body and deeper tissues. Still, due to the skin’s barrier function, deliverythrough the skin can be difficult. Drug delivery to the skin using conventional formulationswith micronized active components, for instance, lotions, gels, ointments, and creams, results inpoor penetration. The use of nanoparticulate carriers is one of the promising strategies, as itprovides efficient delivery of drugs through the skin and overcomes the disadvantage oftraditional formulations. Nanoformulations with smaller particle sizes contribute to improvedpermeability of therapeutic agents, targeting, stability, and retention, making nanoformulationsideal for drug delivery through a topical route. Achieving sustained release and preserving alocalized effect utilizing nanocarriers can result in the effective treatment of numerousinfections or skin disorders. This article aims to evaluate and discuss the most recentdevelopments of nanocarriers as therapeutic agent vehicles for skin conditions with patent technology and a market overview thatwill give future directions for research. As topical drug delivery systems have shown great preclinical results for skin problems, forfuture research directions, we anticipate including in-depth studies of nanocarrier behavior in various customized treatments to takeinto account the phenotypic variability of the disease.