Transdermal Lipid Nanocarriers: A Potential Delivery System for Lornoxicam

Lornoxicam, is a NSAID of the oxicam class. Its short duration of action owing to rapid elimination and gastrointestinal side effects limits its usefulness when administered orally.

The primary objective of the proposed work is to develop suitable lipid nanocarriers for transdermal delivery of Lornoxicam with increased drug residence time at local site of inflamation and in systemic circulation, overcoming undesired gastrointestinal side effects.

Lornoxicam loaded lipid nanocarriers like solid lipid nanocarriers (SLN), nano-structured lipid carriers (NLC) & nanoemulsions (NE) were prepared by high-speed homogenization technique.

The particle size, zeta potential, and polydispersity index as obtained, were in the range of 140- 193 nm, -22 to -32 mV, and 0.354-0.301 for SLN formulations and 146-201 nm, -23 to -30 mV, and 0.355-0.354 for NLC formulations respectively. Characterization of stable NE revealed that globule size, zeta potential and polydispersity index were within the range of 138 to 195 nm, -26.1±0.123 mV and 0.195 ± 1.231 respectively. It was also observed that entrapment efficacy and drug loading improved as the lipid concentration was increased. The results obtained from the in vitro permeation study and in vivo anti-inflammatory study showed controlled drug permeation, increased bioavailability, longer retention and better therapeutic potential of Lornoxicam after transdermal application of lipid nanoparticles as compared to conventional gel.

It can be concluded that the developed lipid nanoparticle loaded gel was found to be a suitable drug delivery carrier for transdermal delivery of Lornoxicam to increase the residence time of drug in systemic circulation and to combat the gastrointestinal side effects.