Topical drug delivery has been used for centuries for the treatment of local skin disorders. Drugs applied to the skin for their local action include antiseptics, antifungal agents, skin emollients, and protectants. Major disadvantage of gel is the delivery of hydrophobic drug. This can be overcome by emulgels. Emulgels have emerged as one of the most attractive topical delivery system as it has dual release control system i.e. gel and emulsion. Since hydrophobic drugs are not soluble in gel bases, it causes problem during the release of drug. When gel and emulsion are used in combination the dosage form is referred as emulgel. In emulgel formulation, the hydrophobic drugs could be incorporated into the oil phase and then oily globules are dispersed in aqueous phase resulting in o/w emulsion which can be mixed into the gel base. The major aim behind this formulation is delivery of hydrophobic drugs to systemic circulation via skin. A distinctive feature of topical drug delivery is the straight accessibility of the skin as a target organ for the treatment. This might be proving improved stability and release of drug than just incorporating drugs into gel base. The purpose of this review article is to exemplify emulgel for topical drug delivery, advantages and disadvantages of emulgel, physiology of skin, major components of emulgel, method of preparation, characterization and marketed products of emulgel.

Emulgel is one of the promising topical drug delivery system for the delivery of hydrophobic drugs which overcome a variety of disadvantages of ointments and creams like greasiness as well as phase inversion. The aim of present work was to develop and evaluate Oxiconazole emulgel. Oxiconazole emulgel was prepared by using polymers like Carbopol 934 and HPMC K4M at different concentrations. Oxiconazole is a broad spectrum anti - fungal agent used in treat of various skin infections such as athlete’s foot, jock itch and ring worm. The prepared emulgels were evaluated in terms of physical appearance, measurement of pH, viscosity, spreadability, drug content and in vitro diffusion studies and skin irritation study. Formulation F1 containing carbapol 934 is considered as optimized formulation because it showed highest drug release i.e., 58.57% in 8 hrs.

Colon-specific drug delivery systems (CDDS) are advantageous for the treatment of a range of local diseases such as ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic pancreatitis, and colonic cancer. Colon targeted drug delivery system can be utilized to deliver protein and peptide drugs as they that are known to degrade in the extreme gastric pH. These approaches involve the use of formulation components that interact with one or more aspects of gastrointestinal (GI) physiology, such as the variation in the pH along the GI tract, the occurrence of colonic microflora, and enzymes, to attain colon targeting. This article highlights the advantages, limitations and factors influencing colon-specific drug delivery. Further, the review gives information of various conventional, as well as relatively newer formulation approaches presently being utilized for the improvement of CDDS.