Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, School of Pharmacy, International Medical University-Bukit Jalil 57000, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 2 Faculty of Pharmacy, Lincoln University College, Petaling Jaya, 47301, Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 3 Laboratory of Fundamentals of Pharmaceutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Puncak Alam Campus, 42300, Bandar Puncak Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 4 Department of Pharmaceutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Puncak Alam Campus, 42300, Bandar Puncak Alam, Selangor, Malaysia. zahidh85@yahoo.com
Drug Deliv Transl Res, 2019 04;9(2):520-533.
PMID: 29488170 DOI: 10.1007/s13346-018-0480-1

Abstract

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronically relapsing eczematous skin disease characterised by frequent episodes of rashes, severe flares, and inflammation. Till date, there is no absolute therapy for the treatment of AD; however, topical corticosteroids (TCs) are the majorly prescribed class of drugs for the management of AD in both adults and children. Though, topical route is most preferable; however, limited penetration of therapeutics across the startum cornum (SC) is one of the major challenges for scientists. Therefore, the present study was attempted to fabricate a moderate-potency TC, betamethasone valerate (BMV), in the form of chitosan nanoparticles (CS-NPs) for optimum dermal targeting and improved penetration across the SC. To further improve the targeting efficiency of BMV and to potentiate its therapeutic efficacy, the fabricated BMV-CS-NPs were coated with hyaluronic acid (HA). The prepared NPs were characterised for particle size, zeta potential, polydispersity index (PDI), entrapment efficiency, loading capacity, crystallinity, thermal behaviour, morphology, in vitro release kinetics, drug permeation across the SC, and percentage of drug retained into various skin layers. Results showed that optimised HA-BMV-CS-NPs exhibited optimum physicochemical characteristics including finest particle size (

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.