Curcumin-Loaded Nanostructured Lipid Carrier Gel for Skin-Targeted Anti-Inflammatory Therapy: A Short Review

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@article{1723903,
      author = {Shruti Soni, Vivek Kumar Patel},
      title = {Curcumin-Loaded Nanostructured Lipid Carrier Gel for Skin-Targeted Anti-Inflammatory Therapy: A Short Review},
      journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
      year = {2026},
      volume = {10},
      number = {4},
      pages = {1412-1427},
      issn = {2456-8880},
      url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1723903.pdf},
      abstract = {Curcumin, the principal curcuminoid of Curcuma longa, is among the most thoroughly investigated natural anti-inflammatory agents, suppressing nuclear factor kappa B signalling and downregulating cyclo-oxygenase-2 and 5-lipoxygenase, yet its therapeutic use is obstructed not by pharmacology but by delivery: it is practically insoluble in water, chemically unstable in neutral and alkaline media, and so poorly and erratically absorbed after oral administration that systemic exposure is negligible. For a cutaneous inflammatory indication this failure is irrelevant if the drug can instead be concentrated directly within the skin. This short review brings together, from open literature, the pharmacology and delivery problem of curcumin, the structure and skin-targeting mechanisms of nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs), representative quantitative precedent for curcumin and other drugs formulated as dermal NLC gels, and the use of Quality by Design (QbD) and the Box-Behnken design for their systematic optimisation. A testable framework is proposed for correlating a defined skin-targeting index, the ratio of drug retained in the viable epidermis and dermis to drug reaching the receptor compartment, with topical anti-inflammatory efficacy in the carrageenan-induced rat paw oedema model. Important gaps remain, notably the scarcity of studies that treat skin retention itself, layer by layer, as a Design-of-Experiments response rather than a post-hoc observation on a single optimised batch.},
      keywords = {curcumin; nanostructured lipid carrier; topical gel; dermal retention; skin targeting; quality by design; Box-Behnken design; ex vivo permeation; anti-inflammatory activity},
      month = {October},
  }