Preparation, Optimization, In Vitro Evaluation and Ex Vivo Permeation Studies of Finasteride Loaded Gel Formulations Prepared Using Response Surface Methodology
September 2018
in “
Current Drug Delivery
”
Studysummary This study found that a finasteride topical gel formulation using propylene glycol and Tween® 80 showed significantly enhanced permeation compared to a control formulation without these enhancers. Our plain-language summary of this paper — not a Tressless recommendation.
The study aimed to prepare and optimize finasteride-loaded topical gel formulations using a central composite design with three factors: propylene glycol (PG), Tween® 80, and sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS). The optimized formulation (F4) containing 0.8 mg PG, 0.4 mg Tween® 80, and 0.2 mg SLS showed significantly higher values of cumulative drug release, flux, partition coefficient, input rate, lag time, and diffusion coefficient compared to the control. The study concluded that while each enhancer individually improved finasteride permeation, the combination of PG and Tween® 80 had a synergistic effect on flux, permeability coefficient, and input rate, but an antagonistic effect on lag time and diffusion coefficient.
