Polymeric microsponges: an emerging prospect in topical delivery of therapeutic agents

Abstract

Skin disorders have an important psychosocial impact on the life of the affected patient. Skin disorders are usually treated by using topical drug delivery systems like creams and gels. These conventional topical drug delivery systems display various adverse effects (burning, itching, inflammation, etc.) reducing the therapeutic efficacy of drugs. Therefore, pharmaceutical scientists are trying to develop new delivery vehicles to treat dermatological disorders. Polymeric microsponges have shown their potential to deliver various therapeutic agents effectively through the topical route in the last decade. Their physicochemical properties like size, high drug entrapment (%), and extended drug release make them superior to other microcarriers explored for topical delivery. This present review discloses about methods of preparation, characterization parameters, and the role of polymeric microsponges for the topical delivery of a variety of drugs. The literature investigation for this review was done by exploring search engines like Google Scholar and Pubmed. This review will be useful for the researchers involved in the work of the development of new delivery vehicles for the topical route.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Conventional
• extended drug release
• microsponges
• microcarriers
• topical

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).