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Confocal Raman Spectroscopy as a Tool to Investigate the Action of Penetration Enhancers Inside the Skin

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Percutaneous Penetration Enhancers Drug Penetration Into/Through the Skin

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Abstract

Confocal Raman microspectroscopy (CRM) is a new method aimed at investigating in vitro or in vivo the penetration of substances in the skin (either active substances, contaminants, or even other ingredients) provided that they have a Raman signature that can be isolated from the spectral background. This technique allows monitoring the permeant absorption into the skin up to 100 μm depth, but also simultaneous investigation of the modification of endogenous skin components resulting from interactions between the permeants and skin lipids or proteins. Penetration enhancers have been studied for a long time by several techniques; tracking enhancers in the skin by CRM is a new field of investigation. Water is the first enhancer widely studied by the CRM technique. Numerous studies explored the moisturization of stratum corneum (SC) and its consequences to drug penetration. Retinol was the most common model drug used to investigate the impact of classical enhancers such as dimethylsulfoxide, oleic acid, and surfactants on drug absorption. Measurements by CRM of the enhancing effect of surfactants on retinol penetration allowed sorting them with respect to their penetration enhancer power. The modification of the stratum corneum lipids packing after application of such formulations has also been pointed out in few studies. More recently, the development of stimulated Raman scattering microscopy improved the sensitivity of Raman microscopy imaging of skin.

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  1. University of Lyon, Laboratoire d’Automatique et de Génie des Procédés (LAGEP), CNRS UMR 5007, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 43 bd 11 Novembre, 69622, Villeurbanne, France

    Stéphanie Briançon, Marie-Alexandrine Bolzinger & Yves Chevalier

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  1. Stéphanie Briançon
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  2. Marie-Alexandrine Bolzinger
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  3. Yves Chevalier
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Correspondence to Stéphanie Briançon .

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  1. Apoteka “Beograd”, Belgrade, Serbia

    Nina Dragicevic

  2. San Francisco, California, USA

    Howard I. Maibach

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Briançon, S., Bolzinger, MA., Chevalier, Y. (2017). Confocal Raman Spectroscopy as a Tool to Investigate the Action of Penetration Enhancers Inside the Skin. In: Dragicevic, N., I. Maibach, H. (eds) Percutaneous Penetration Enhancers Drug Penetration Into/Through the Skin. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-53270-6_13

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