Transdermal delivery of chitosan-based systems

Abstract

Transdermal drug delivery has offered a promising alternative to other routes of delivery especially for the lipophilic drugs with limited oral bioavailability. Transdermal systems are acceptable because of their noninvasiveness, ease of application and removal, controlled drug release for long duration of time, avoidance of hepatic first-pass metabolism, and improved bioavailability. The predominant challenge in transdermal drug delivery is the skin barrier in the form of stratum corneum. Various approaches have been employed for breaching this barrier including penetration enhancers, iontophoresis, electroporation, and sonophoresis to name a few. Chitosan is a biodegradable, biocompatible polysaccharide polymer with anti-infective, antidiabetic, anticancer, and antihyperlipidemic effect. It has also been used as an adjuvant in transdermal drug delivery for its skin penetration enhancing properties. It is polycationic in nature and shows strong mucoadhesive property by interacting with negatively charged entity of skin moieties, thus prolonging contact time. This chapter deals with the synthesis of chitosan and application of chitosan-based drug delivery systems in transdermal drug delivery.