Overcoming Skin Barrier with Transfersomes: Opportunities, Challenges, and Applications

Transdermal drug delivery systems (TDDS) offer several advantages over traditional methods like injections and oral administration, including preventing first-pass metabolism, providing consistent and sustained activity, reducing side effects, enabling the use of short halflife drugs, improving physiological response, and enhancing patient convenience. However, the permeability of skin poses a challenge for TDDS, as it is impermeable to large molecules and hydrophilic drugs but permeable to small molecules and lipophilic medications. To overcome this barrier, researchers have investigated vesicular systems, such as transfersomes, liposomes, niosomes, and ethosomes. Among these vesicular systems, transfersomes are particularly promising for non-invasive drug administration due to their deformability and flexible membrane. They have been extensively studied for delivering anticancer drugs, insulin, corticosteroids, herbal medicines, and NSAIDs through the skin. Transfersomes have demonstrated efficacy in treating skin cancer, improving insulin delivery, enhancing site-specific corticosteroid delivery, and increasing the permeation and therapeutic effects of herbal medicines. They have also been effective in delivering pain relief with minimal side effects using NSAIDs and opioids. Transfersomes have been used for transdermal immunization and targeted drug delivery, offering site-specific release and minimizing adverse effects. Overall, transfersomes are a promising approach for transdermal drug delivery in various therapeutic applications.