Therapeutic progress with topical liposome drugs for skin disease

It was more than three decades ago that liposomes were first discussed as drug delivery systems. Yet in the dermatological field liposomes were used initially only because of their moisturizing and restoring action. Later their capability of enclosing many different biological materials and of delivering them to the epidermal cells or even deeper cell layers was investigated. This offered new perspectives: Whereas systemically applied liposome drugs often proved disappointing topical drug delivery seemed to have some advantages: Pharmaceutical substances such as glucocorticosteroids, retinoids and local anesthetics incorporated into liposomes showed greater effectiveness making shorter application periods possible as well as a decrease of side effects. This leads to the conclusion that liposomes may be useful vehicles for topical drug delivery in the context of varying skin diseases.