Proniosome Gel: An Effective Novel Therapeutic Topical Delivery System

Skin has become an impressive and idealistic platform for the delivery of drugs compared to other routes. However, the stratum corneum “dead, impermeable barrier devoid of biological activity” to skin had challenged the development of transdermal product, which delivers the drugs directly to the systemic circulation at a controlled rate. Recent literature suggests the old doctrine, which states that compounds with a molecular weight 500 Da cannot cross the skin, need some amendment owing to the availability of novel methods that might enhance the transport of large molecular weight compounds into or through the skin. Several approaches put forward to enhance the penetration of drug through skin for transdermal drug delivery and one among them are provesicular niosomes (Proniosomes), which ideally possess the sole property of reversibly reducing the barrier resistance of the horny layer, allowing the drug to reach the living tissues at a greater rate. The provesicular noisome (non-ionic surfactant based vesicles); colloid carrier is still in its infancy and need to exploit more in field of drug delivery. Basically, proniosomal gel is a compact semi-solid liquid crystalline (gel) product of non-ionic surfactants easily formed on dissolving the surfactant in minimal amount of acceptable solvent and the least amount of aqueous phase. This compact liquid crystalline gel can be readily converted into niosomes on hydration. This review provides an important overview of preparation, formulation, evaluation and application of proniosome gel as a drug carrier.