Buccal drug delivery especially refers to the delivery of drugs through the buccal mucosal membrane lining of the oral cavity. For geriatric and pediatric patients who undergo difficulties in swallowing conventional oral solid dosage forms, the buccal film is a better alternative. The buccal film is appropriate for the drugs which experience high first-pass metabolism and is used for enhancing bioavailability with reducing dosing frequency to mouth plasma peak levels, which thus limit side-effects and make it cost-effective. It enhances the efficacy of API in the oral cavity after the contact with less saliva as contrasted to tablets, without chewing and no need for water for administration. This review briefly describes the advantages and limitations of buccal film, an anatomical structure of oral mucosa, highlighting the mechanisms of drug permeation, formulation technologies, methodology in evaluating buccal film, and recent advances of the buccal film as a tool for drug delivery for various treatments.

Objective: The present research work of Amphotericin B Proniosomal gel focuses on improving patient compliance by reducing the side effects of conventional intravenous injections and minimizing the problem of physical stability and to localize drug at site of action. Methods: Proniosomal gels are prepared by coacervation phase separation technique using different concentration of non-ionic surfactants (Span and Tween) for uniform vesicle formation, lecithin as permeation enhancer/membrane stabilizer and cholesterol as a vesicle cement providing prolonged release. Prepared gels were evaluated for their viscosity, pH, spreadability, entrapment efficiency, drug content uniformity, extrudability, in vitro drug release, permeability and stability studies. Results: Among the nine formulations, F2 (containing 10 mg drug, 250 mg Span 60, 50 mg Soya lecithin) was found to be promising. Fourier Transform infra-red (FT-IR) spectra studies represented no interaction and physicochemical characteristics were found within the limits. The percentages of drug content and entrapment efficiency were determined to be 95.16%±0.40 and 94.20%±0.20, respectively. In vitro drug release was about 95.72%±0.30. Conclusion: Proniosomal gel could constitute a promising approach for topical delivery of Amphotericin B by encapsulating it in non-ionic surfactant to provide patient compliance with cutaneous fungal infection, which was found to be safe, tolerable and efficacious.