Enhancement of skin permeability with thermal ablation techniques: concept to commercial products

Abstract

Traditionally, the skin is considered as a protective barrier which acts as a highly impermeable region of the human body. But in recent times, it is recognized as a specialized organ that aids in the delivery of a wide range of drug molecules into the skin (intradermal drug delivery) and across the skin into systemic circulation (transdermal drug delivery, TDD). The bioavailability of a drug administered transdermally can be improved by several penetration enhancement techniques, which are broadly classified into chemical and physical techniques. Application of mentioned techniques together with efforts of various scientific and innovative companies had made TDD a multibillion dollar market and an average of 2.6 new transdermal drugs are being approved each year. Out of various techniques, the thermal ablation techniques involving chemicals, heating elements, lasers, and radiofrequency (RF) are proved to be more effective in terms of delivering the drug across the skin by disrupting the stratum corneum (SC). The reason behind it is that the thermal ablation technique resulted in improved bioavailability, quick treatment and fast recovery of the SC, and more importantly it does not cause any damage to underlying dermis layer. This review article mainly discussed about various thermal ablation techniques with commercial products and patents in each classes, and their safety aspects. This review also briefly presented anatomy of the skin, penetration pathways across the skin, and different generations of TDD.

Hair Loss Treatment Using Erbium:YAG Fractional Laser with Hair Growth-promoting Solution

“…Therefore, it can be the most universally comfortable and safe laser. 10 Hair follicle stem cells provide progeny that migrates to the epidermal defect and promotes re-epithelialization. Pictures (E, F) were taken with a hair analyzer, APM-AH-300 diagnostic system (phototrichogram) at the center of the frontal M-shaped area.…”

Beneath the Skin: A Review of Current Trends and Future Prospects of Transdermal Drug Delivery Systems

“…The lag time in drug release may be the most notable drawback of the chemical approach. Dosage forms which exhibit a lag time are unsuitable for use when an early onset of action is desired [14,33]. In addition, the bioavailability of transdermal patches is sometimes low when compared with parenteral dosage forms.…”

The Emerging Role of Ionic Liquid-Based Approaches for Enhanced Skin Permeation of Bioactive Molecules: A Snapshot of the Past Couple of Years

“…The distinct physical methods mentioned above act through different permeation mechanisms and have been employed alone or combined, with each other or with non-physical methods, to enhance the absorption of a wide range of APIs, and also cosmeceuticals, through the skin [ 1 , 9 , 35 , 36 ].…”