Laxmidhar Sahoo

Introduction. For the last decade, nanotechnology has been studied extensively in the pharmaceutical field. Among all the nanotechnology formulation areas, nanostructured lipid carrier is enormously researched by formulation scientists as it is one of the focused areas of lipid carrier for the effective formulation.Materials and methods. The nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC) consists of solid lipid, liquid lipid & surfactant for fabrication of formulation. Methods such as high energy methods, low energy methods and organic solvent-based methods are used for the preparation of NLC. As per literature study the High pressure homogenization is the most efficient method for fabrication of formulation.Results and discussion. This carrier system has significant advantages such as high drug entrapment, improved bioavailability, stability during storage, and targeting the site with a better-controlled release making it a prominent area for the formulator to emphasize on it. Although many drugs are formulated with a nanostructured lipid carrier, it is a concern for researchers to find out the effectiveness of formulation by studying the process parameter and safety.Conclusion. The present review was focused to study the impact of various parameters such as Lipid, surfactant, homogenization rate, preservative, Crystallinity, and surface charge on the formulation. The study also extended towards toxicity and biocompatibility, topical targeting & cancer treatment of the Nanostructured lipid carrier.

Background: The advanced development of lipid nanocarrier contributes a lot to the domain of therapeutic effectiveness of the drug. However the parameter such as drug loading, drug release, stability, and targeting influence much more towards the limitation of many lipid nanocarriers. The Nanostructured lipid carrier, the second generation of lipid carrier has more promising advantages over others and have tremendous targeting ability to skin for drug administration. Objective: The present review paper focus to understand the different fabrication technique, impact of lipid and surfactant on formulation effectiveness, characterization of formulation, and Crystalinity concept of lipid which have an impact on stability & drug loading. Focus on a parameter such as Transepidermal water loss , skin occlusion, and hydration which determine the ability of the carrier to target the skin. Hence the effectiveness of the drug improved. This review also focused on patents based on Nanostructured lipid carriers. Method of preparation: many methods have been adopted to prepare Nanostructured lipid carriers and among all High-pressure homogenization method is considered as best one. Conclusion: Because of numerous advantages of this carrier system such as biocompatibility of lipid, high drug encapsulation, stability over others, it is considered as a major focused area for researchers. The new domain of Nanostructured lipid carrier is transdermal drug administration by targeting the skin; hence more research is focused on topical preparation. However, toxicity must have to be studied in humans. So by considering all factors one can rename it as “smart nano lipid carrier".