Abstract
Transdermal route of drug delivery has gained great research interest, as it overcomes number of problems associated with oral route of administration. The main challenge is to overcome the skin barrier namely the stratum corneum. Recently, various strategies have been used to enhance the transdermal delivery of bioactives which includes chemical permeation enhancer, microneedles, iontophoresis, electrophoresis, sonophoresis, magnetophoresis and carrier systems such as liposomes, niosomes and ultradeformable liposomes such as ethosomes, transfersomes and transethosomes. Among these strategies ultradeformable appear to be more promising as they possesses both lipophilic and hydrophilic regions together and due to this it can accommodate drug molecules with wide ranges of solubility. They are flexible and can pass through narrow constriction from 5 to 10 times less than its own diameter. Hence good penetration of drugs encapsulated in these ultradeformable vesicles is achieved. These ultradeformable vesicles can be used for transdermal delivery of drugs of various classes which have problems when administered by conventional routes such as analgesics, anesthetics, corticosteroids, sex hormones, anticancer agents, insulin.
