Managing a chronic skin ailment with non-ionic surfactant based micro-emulgel loaded with bio-actives: Formulation, characterization and biological evaluation

In a global report on psoriasis, World Health Organization stated that, a significant portion of the global population suffers from psoriasis, a chronic, non-contagious autoimmune, inflammatory skin disorder mediated by T cells with unpredictable relapse. Overall, there is ample evidence to suggest that the treatment of psoriasis with synthetic agents is associated with ample of systemic long term side effects. The present study aims at the use of novel nanosized carriers for plant bio-actives to significantly enhance the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of plant actives and avoid side-effects of synthetic agents. In present study, we have created Quercetin and Ferulic acid loaded micro-emulsion formulations using, oleic acid, Polysorbate 80 and propylene glycol as the oil, surfactant, and co-surfactant, respectively. To make topical psoriasis treatment easier, various batches of microemulsions with surfactant: cosurfactant compositions ranging from 31%w/w to 34%w/w were prepared and embedded in a hydrogel system containing gelling agents like sodium alginate and carbapol 940. Numerous parameters, including viscosity, spreadability, globule size, zeta potential, polydispersibility index, refractive index, percent transmittance, conductivity test, etc., were assessed for these developed microemulsions and micro-emulgels (microemulsion loaded hydrogels). The created formulations were found pharmaceutically satisfactory and known to possess good antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, the most commonly known pathogen which can be the possible agent to exaggerate the psoriatic symptoms.