Transdermal Drug Delivery System: Review and Future

Abstract

Transdermal drug delivery system (TDDS) comes under the controlled drug release category with a basic principle of delivering the drug molecule permeate through skin. TDDS are more or less upper hand to conventional tablet, injection and capsule. Conventional formulation sometimes becomes non-compliant because of its frequent dosing, pain during administration, fast pass metabolism of the drug and various others. On the other side, TDDS can nullify all these problems by avoiding fast pass metabolism, single dosing effective for 1 to 7 days. For the permeation of drug through the skin layers like epidermis and dermis can be barriers. TDDS are designed in a way that they can bypass these barriers by permeating through the skin using the routes like appendageal, transcellular and other routes. Some factors which effect skin permeation are physicochemical, biological and other factors. TDDS have some basic components like polymer matrix, adhesive, backing laminate etc. which forms the transdermal device. Transdermal devices are generally classified into four types of polymer membrane permeation-controlled TDDS, adhesive diffusion-controlled TDDS and others. Various evaluation techniques are available for its evaluation, E.g. folding endurance, probe tack test, rolling ball tack test and many more. Some recent advancements in TDDS are transdermal protein delivery, diabetic monitoring patch and nanotechnology in TDDS. Some recent technologies have been invented to enhance transdermal delivery of a drug, which are electrically-based enhancement technology, structure-based enhancement technology, and others. In the recent past patient, compliance has been one of the prime goals of TDDS, which is the focus of all researchers.