Exploring Applications of Flexible Vesicular Systems as Transdermal Drug Delivery

Deformable lipidic-nano carriers are a category of advanced liposomal formulations. Deformable lipidic-nano carriers have a specific character to transform by rearranging the lipidic backbone to squeeze themself through a pore opening ten times smaller than their diameter when exposed to a variable condition like hydration gradient as these have potentially been used as a non-invasive delivery system to transdermally migrate various therapeutic agents for over three decades. Despite their vast application in transdermal drug delivery system, non-uniformity to express their chemical nature still exist and authors use various terms synonymously and interchangeably with each other. The present study delineates the terminologies used to express different derived deformable vesicular carriers to harmonize the terminological use. It also includes the effectiveness of deformable nanocarriers like Transferosomes, Ethosomes, Menthosomes, Invasomes, and Glycerosomes in skin conditions like basal cell carcinoma, fungal and viral infections, and hyperpigmentation disorders, along with others. Various review and research articles were selected from the 'Pubmed' database. The keywords like Transferosomes, Flexi-vesicular system, ultra-deformable vesicles, and nano-vesicular systems were used to extract the data. The data was reviewed and compiled to categorically classify different flexible vesicular systems. The composition of the different vesicular systems is identified and a report of various pathological conditions where the use of flexible lipid nanocarrier systems was implemented is compiled. The review also offers suggestive approaches where the applicability of these systems can be explored further.

An indian study of health related quality of life in bipolar disorder patients and their caregivers

Introduction

There are major health care implications of quality of life (QOL) in longstanding disorders such as Bipolar affective disorder (BD) for the patients and their caregivers.

Objectives

The aim of the present study is to compare quality of life among bipolar disorder patients, their caregivers and to assess whether the level of depression correlates with the scores of quality of life in Bipolar Disorder patients.

Method

We compared bipolar disorder (N = 40), their caregivers (N = 40) and no psychiatric illnesses (N = 150) on health related quality of life (HRQOL) which was assessed using the 26-item World Health Organization QOL instrument (WHOQOL-BREF Hindi version). All patients were diagnosed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM IV. Within the group with bipolar disorder, we examined the relationship between HRQOL using WHOQOL BREF Hindi version and depression assessed using the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS).

Results

Patients in bipolar disorder group had lower QOL on all the four domains compared to healthy controls, caregivers. The four domains of the WHOQOL scale correlated negatively with the HDRS.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that bipolar depression and residual symptoms of depression are negatively correlated with QOL in BD patients.