Nanomaterials for Targeted Drug Delivery through Skin to Treat Various Diseases: Recent Trends and Future Perspective

There is an increased trend of drug delivery via skin due to its convenience and affordability. To accomplish this task in a better way and more successfully, nanotechnology has opened the door to transport drugs for the treatment of acute diseases in unique ways. For partially solvable drugs especially, designing new drug transportation systems is always challenging. However, it has been fixed by utilizing nanomaterials as effective carriers for drugs. These carriers allow the controlled and continuous drug release at the specific spotted site and have been successfully manipulated for the creation of innovative drug-delivery systems. These innovative systems are applied to overcome the challenge of reduced water solubility that may improve the drug accessibility, sustained release, and high metabolic stability. The prime emphasis of this review is particularly on the universal routes of drug administration through the skin, limitations of conventional drug delivery systems (DDS), and types and properties of nanomaterials (NMs) used. Recent advancements in NMs such as carbon-based NMs, inorganic-/metal-based NMs, polymeric NMs, and hybrid NMs for drug delivery and their mode of action have been summarized. This review further discusses existing constraints and difficulties that impede the integration of nanomaterials from research to practice, as well as recommendations for more efficient use of nanomaterials in a number of diseases.