Advances in the Drug Delivery Systems for Psoriasis Topical Therapy

Psoriasis (PSO) is an immune-related skin disease featured by rapid and excessive cell growth leading to thick red scaly skin plaques. The main treatment strategy for PSO involves using anti-inflammatory drugs, immunosuppressants, etc, to relieve symptoms, suppress inflammation, and retard the overgrowth and division of skin cells. However, these drugs generally have disadvantages such as poor targeting, short half-life, low bioavailability, significant toxic side effects, etc. which impose a huge physiological and pathological burden on patients. Recently, the use of delivery systems to topical deliver drugs to the damaged psoriatic skin sites has received extensive attention from researchers. These systems promote drug stability, enhance drug penetration, and improve drug efficacies. The continuous development of various multifunctional topical delivery systems provides more therapeutic ideas for the cure of PSO. Based on this, this manuscript reviews the research progress of various delivery systems (including nanoparticles, hydrogels, microneedles, micelles, dendrimers, liposomes, nanoemulsions, vesicles, etc.) for PSO topical therapy and summarizes their development status in clinical treatment. It's expected to provide reference for the design of novel topical delivery systems and promote the development of PSO therapy methods.