Paclitaxel-loaded ethosomes®: Potential treatment of squamous cell carcinoma, a malignant transformation of actinic keratoses

Topical application of anticancer drugs for the treatment of malignancies represents a new challenge in dermatology, potentially being an alternative therapeutic approach for the efficacious treatment of nonmelanoma skin cancer, that is, actinic keratoses, and malignant lesions of the skin caused by ultraviolet radiation. Anti-proliferative and antimitotic drugs, including many of the taxanes, are currently under investigation for the treatment of cutaneous malignant transformation of actinic keratoses, particularly the squamous cell carcinoma. Paclitaxel-loaded ethosomes (R) are proposed as topical drug delivery systems for the treatment of this pathology due to their suitable physicochemical characteristics and enhanced skin penetration ability for deep dermal delivery. Our in vitro data show that the skin application of paclitaxel-loaded ethosomes (R) improved the permeation of paclitaxel in a stratum corneum-epidermis membrane model and increased its anti-proliferative activity in a squamous cell carcinoma model as compared to the free drug. The results obtained encouraged the use of the paclitaxel-loaded ethosomes (R) as the formulation for the potential treatment of squamous cell carcinoma, a malignant transformation of actinic keratoses.