title: Advanced progress of microencapsulation technologies: in vivo and in vitro models for studying oral and transdermal drug deliveries.
abstract: This review provides an overall discussion of microencapsulation systems for both oral and transdermal drug deliveries. Clinically, many drugs, especially proteins and peptides, are susceptible to the gastrointestinal tract and the first-pass metabolism after oral administration while some drugs exhibit low skin permeability through transdermal delivery route. Medicated microcapsules as oral and transdermal drug delivery vehicles are believed to offer an extended drug effect at a relatively low dose and provide a better patient compliance. The polymeric microcapsules can be produced by different microencapsulation methods and the drug microencapsulation technology provides the quality preservation for drug stabilization. The release of the entrapped drug is controlled and prolonged for specific usages. Some recent studies have focused on the evaluation of drug containing microcapsules on potential biological and therapeutic applications. For the oral delivery, in vivo animal models were used for evaluating possible treatment effects of drug containing microcapsules. For the transdermal drug delivery, skin delivery models were introduced to investigate the potential skin delivery of medicated microcapsules. Finally, the challenges and limitations of drug microencapsulation in real life are discussed and the commercially available drug formulations using microencapsulation technology for oral and transdermal applications are shown.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chirosciences, Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China. Electronic address: tcstacey@inet.polyu.edu.hk.
authors.forename: P L
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Lam
authors.affiliation: Centre of Biotechnology, Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gambari
mesh_terms: D000279:Administration, Cutaneous; D000284:Administration, Oral; D000818:Animals; D002214:Capsules; D004339:Drug Compounding; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D004355:Drug Stability; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D002214:Capsules
keywords: In vivo study; Microencapsulation; Oral drug delivery; Skin delivery model; Transdermal drug delivery