Therapeutic Implications of Nanopharmaceuticals in Skin Delivery

Background: The delivery of drugs or actives through the skin provides a convenient route of administration because it is noninvasive and can typically be self-administered. In skin delivery, different strategies have been developed to enhance the rate and extent of drug transport across the skin. These strategies consist in particulate carriers such as nanoparticles generally made of polymers and lipids where some advantages are solubility improvement of poorly water-soluble drugs, increase of skin permeation through different mechanisms, and ability to modify drug pharmacokinetics. Besides polymeric- and lipidic-, metallic-based nanoparticles like silver nanoparticles are recently used as nanocarriers for skin delivery due to their strong and broad-spectrum antimicrobial characteristics. All encapsulant materials (polymers, lipids, and metals) and solvents used in the drug delivery are approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) (as biocompatible and biodegradable materials). Major advances: In this chapter, a compilation of the type and the therapeutic implications of nanotechnology applied to the skin in pharmaceutical area as well as safety issues, ecotoxicity concerns, and regulatory framework of different nanoparticles for skin delivery over the last 40 years was described.