Nanostructured Lipid Carriers as a Novel Strategy for Topical Antifungal Therapy

Nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC) were developed as an alternative carrier system optimizing limitations found in topical treatments for superficial fungal infections, such as limited permeation through the skin. However, few published studies are focused on standardization and characterization of determinant variables of these lipid nanosystems' quality. Thus, this systematic review aims to compile information regarding the selection of lipids, surfactants, and preparation method that intimately relates to the final quality of this nanotechnology. For this, the search was carried with the following descriptors: 'nanostructured lipid carriers', 'topical', 'antifungal' separated by the Boolean operators 'and', present in the titles of the databases: Science Direct, Scopus and Pubmed. The review included experimental articles focused on the development of nanostructured lipid carriers targeted for topical application with antifungal activity, published from 2015 to 2021. Review articles, clinical studies, and studies on the development of other nanocarriers intended for other routes of administration were excluded from the study. The research included 26 articles, of which 58% were developed in India and Brazil, 53% published in the years 2019 and 2020. As for the selection of antifungal drugs incorporated into NLCs, the azole class had a preference over other classes, voriconazole being incorporated into 5 of the 26 developed NLC studied. It was also observed a predominance of medium chain triglycerides (MCT) as a liquid lipid and polysorbate 80 as a surfactant. Among other results, this review compiles the influences of each of the variables discussed in the quality parameters of NLCs, in order to guide future research involving the development of this technology. Graphical Abstract.