Formulation, characterization and ex vivo study of curcumin nano-invasomal gel for enhanced transdermal delivery

Abstract

Curcumin is a complex molecule with substantial activity against a number of diseases but its limited water solubility and low skin penetration offer significant challenges to its transdermal distribution and performance thus for enhancing its transdermal application curcumin-loaded invasomes were prepared using mechanical dispersion process. Invasomes were characterised and optimised in terms of entrapment efficiency, vesicle size, in vitro drug release, ex vivo permeation and skin retention studies. A topical gel was prepared from the optimized invasomal formulation. In vitro release study of invasomal gel affirmed well with Higuchi kinetic model for release. Ex vivo study confirmed that the curcumin permeation across the pig ear skin from the invasomal gel was 2.60 times higher and had a flux of 166.02 ± 0.13 µg/cm2/h. The study's findings suggest that invasomes have a high potential for transdermal administration of curcumin which can increase the topical utility of curcumin in several skin diseases.