Microneedle Mediated Transdermal Delivery of Beta-Sitosterol Loaded Nanostructured Lipid Nanoparticles for Androgenic Alopecia

This study investigates a transdermal delivery system for β-sitosterol (BS) using nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC) incorporated into polymeric microneedles (MN) to treat androgenic alopecia. The optimized BS-loaded NLCs were tested on testosterone-induced alopecia rats, showing a significantly higher skin penetration and steady-state flux compared to NLC alone. The anagen/telogen ratio improved significantly with NLC and NLC-MN treatments, indicating enhanced hair growth, with the NLC-MN system showing the most significant results. The findings suggest that the NLC-MN transdermal system could be an effective treatment for androgenic alopecia.