Nanostructured Lipid Carrier for Dermatological Application: A Comprehensive Review and Future Perspective

Dermatological disease states have psychological impacts that affect a patient's life. In the management of such disorders, topical delivery has an important role. However, the conventional topical delivery systems suffer from various limitations, like skin irritation, a minute quantity of drugs reaching disease sites, and over and under medication, which leads to an adverse reaction and therapeutic failure, respectively. Therefore, researchers continuously search for an alternate delivery system for treating skin disease. In recent years, nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC) have emanated as promising carrier systems for topical delivery. The current review provides an in-depth insight into topical administration for treating a variety of dermatological issues using NLCs as a carrier. This review highlights the suitability of NLCs as carriers for topical delivery, their method of preparation, and their characterization. In the present review, the main emphasis has been given to the management of various dermatological problems by using NLCs as a carrier; a plethora of literature investigating NLC as the carrier for topical delivery has been included in this review. In this paper, an attempt has been made to provide a summary of the research carried out in this field that will encourage further research in this arena.