Emerging Nanomedicine for Skin Cancer

Abstract

Skin cancer is a common cancer and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Topical treatment is an attractive option compared with systemic route due to the reduced association with systemic toxicity. Nonetheless, skin is a natural barrier under physiological conditions for topical drug delivery as it is crucial to provide protection to the body. Such barrier will limit the drug uptake into skin. Common strategies consisting of physical and chemical approaches to overcome this have been reported to improve topical delivery efficacy. However, safety concerns caused by possible irreversible skin damage remain. Due to the heterogeneous physical and chemical property of the skin, current methods limits the variety of drugs suitable for effective delivery into skin. Here, in this review, we showed the promise in engineering lipidic nanoparticles in treating skin cancer.