Liposomal Nanocarriers to Enhance Skin Delivery of Chemotherapeutics in Cancer Therapy

Cancer chemotherapeutics administered to cancer patients via traditional oral or parenteral routes often encounter poor bioavailability and severe systemic side effects. Skin delivery is a promising alternative route with reduced side effects and improved therapeutic efficacy and has gained significant attention in recent years. With conventional or deformable liposomal nanocarriers as a skin permeation strategy, cancer chemotherapeutics can be delivered via skin route, offering an option for more efficient therapy. This review summarizes the recent advances in liposome nanocarrier efficacy to enhance the skin delivery of chemotherapeutics with a wide range of physicochemical properties (log P_oct from -0.89 to 5.93, MW from 130 to 1415) in targeting local skin cancer, breast cancer, and tumor metastasis and delivering the drug to systemic circulation to treat distal cancers. The potential mechanisms of skin permeation enhancement by different type of liposomes are also discussed in this review.