Transdermal Delivery: Measuring Product Texture
Applying transdermal patchTRANSDERMAL DELIVERY

Transdermal drug delivery as a route for systemic drug administration is currently one of the advancing areas in drug development research.

This is particularly true for the delivery of such drugs as opiate painkillers, birth control, nitroglycerin for the prophylaxis of angina, nicotine for smoking cessation therapy, testosterone for the correction of male hypogonadism.

The skin route for systemic drug delivery is especially attractive to formulators, as this integument is the most readily accessible organ of the body. Clinicians are increasingly recognising the advantages of controlled continuous intravenous infusion of drugs, such as the avoidance of hepatic metabolism and the maintenance of a constant therapeutic level in the body, that can be obtained by the use of the skin as a portal of drug delivery, without the risks and costs of intravenous therapy.