PHARMACEUTICAL AND BIOLOGICAL EVALUATIONS August 2015; vol. 2 (Issue 4): 64-75. www.onlinepbe.com
ISSN 2394-0859
Review Article
Emulgels: a novel topical drug delivery system Asish Dev1*, Reha Chodankar1, Om Shelke2 1 2
Oriental College of Pharmacy, Sanpada, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Taloja, Navi Mumbai, Maharahtra, India
ABSTRACT *For correspondence Mr. Asish Dev, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Pharmaceutics, Oriental College of Pharmacy, Sanpada, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra. Tel: Email:
[email protected]
Received: 26 July 2015 Accepted: 15 August 2015
Skin is most liable to have microbial or fungal infections. Emulsions are gellified emulsion in which emulsion is incorporated into gel base. Skin is having different layers like dermis, epidermis and stratum corneum and different sub layers. Emulgels having advantages like Better stability, Hydrophobic drugs can be easily incorporated into gels using d/o/w emulsions, Production feasibility, low preparation cost, Better loading capacity, Controlled release and No intensive sonication with certain disadvantages like poor penetration, skin irritation, bubble formation. Emulgels are of two types micro emulsion gels and nano emulgel. Emulgels are prepared contains aqueous phase made up of water or alcohols, Oil phase made up of mineral oil in combination with soft paraffin or hard paraffin, emulsifiers, gelling agents, anti-oxidants, preservatives, penetration enhancer and humectants. Emulgels are characterised for parameters such as Physical Examination, Rhelogical Studies, Globule size and its distribution in emulgel, Spreading Coefficient, Extrudability Study of Topical Emulgel (Tube Test), Swelling Index, Drug Content Determination, Skin Irritation Test (Patch Test), Ex–Vivo Bioadhesive strength measurement of topical emulgel, In-Vitro Release Study, Microbiological assay, Drug Release Kinetic Study, Stability Studies and Accelerated stability studies of Gellified Emulsion. Keywords: Emulgels, Novel topical drug delivery system
10-15% of total body weight. It mainly consists of four layers; stratum corneum, viable epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous tissue. The delivery through skin is known as topical drug delivery system12. Skin being the most readily accessible part of human body, the molecules on surface application easily penetrate the skin via three routes: through intact stratum corneum (it presents about more than 99% of total skin area for percutaneous drug absorption), through sweat ducts, and through sebaceous follicles8. Generally, the topical drug delivery is used when the drug administration fails or in the local skin
Introduction Since ages, human beings are affected by various types of diseases affecting their health and wellbeing. Efforts to treat these diseases have been accomplished by administering various drugs to human body via various routes (topical, nasal, vaginal, oral, parenteral, etc) 4,12. The selection of the route depends on the type and the severity of the disease4.Each drug delivery route has its own advantages and disadvantages when compared to others. Skin is considered as one of the heaviest single organ of human body consisting of about ©Pharmaceutical and Biological Evaluations
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infection3,4. Topical delivery is defined as application of a formulation containing drug to the skin to treat cutaneous disorder directly3,10.
Factors affecting topical absorption of drug11: (A) Physiological Factors
Disadvantages of topical drug delivery6:
1. Skin thickness. 2. Lipid content. 3. Density of hair follicles. 4. Density of sweat glands. 5. Skin pH. 6. Blood flow. 7. Hydration of skin. 8. Inflammation of skin.
The skin consists of several layers. The outer layer is called epidermis, the layer below the epidermis is called dermis. The dermis contain a network of blood vessels, hair follicle, sweat gland & sebaceous gland. Beneath the dermis are subcutaneous fatty tissues. Bulbs of hair project into these fatty tissues. Human skin surface is known to contain, on average 40-70 hair follicles and 200-300 sweat ducts on every square centimetre of the skin. The pH of the skin varies from 4 to 5.6.
1. Partition coefficient. 2. Molecular weight (
