Preparation and in vivo evaluation of a highly skin- and nail-permeable efinaconazole topical formulation for enhanced treatment of onychomycosis

Onychomycosis is a progressive fungal infection of the nails that involves the deeper nail layer and nail bed. It is important to maintain sufficient drug concentration in the diseased tissues after topical application. In this study, a stable topical delivery system for efinaconazole (EFN) was designed to enhance absorption potential through the skin and nail plate by incorporating ethanol, diethylene glycol monoethyl ether (Transcutol P) and isopropyl myristate, and cyclomethicone into the topical solution as a delivery vehicle, permeation enhancers, and a wetting agent, respectively. In addition, the stability of EFN in the formulation was significantly improved by adding butylated hydroxytoluene, diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid, and citric acid as an antioxidant, chelating agent, and pH-adjusting agent, respectively, without discoloration. The optimum EFN formulation (EFN-K) showed 1.46-fold greater human skin permeation than that of the reference control (commercial 10% EFN topical solution). Furthermore, after a 24-hour incubation, the amount of infiltrated EFN from EFN-K in the human nail plate was 4.11-fold greater than that of the reference control, resulting in an 89.7% increase in nail flux at 7 days after treatment. EFN-K significantly accelerated structural recovery of the keratin layer in a Trichophyton mentagrophytes-infected guinea pig onychomycosis model, decreasing the mean viable fungal cell count by 54.3% compared to the vehicle-treated group after once-daily treatment for 4 weeks. Thus, the accelerated skin and nail penetration effect of EFN-K is expected to achieve good patient compliance, and improve the complete cure rate of onychomycosis.