Nanotechnological strategies for vaginal administration of drugs--a review.

Women frequently develop disorders related to the vaginal area, including problems with the immune system, hygiene, genetic aspects and sexually transmitted diseases. Compared with other mucosal application sites, the vagina represents local effect as well as systemic drug delivery and is able to avoid the first-pass effect due to its large surface area, high blood supply and permeability to many active ingredients. It has been widely proposed that the use of drugs to treat vaginal disorders be combined with nanotechnology because nanosystems often potentiate the action of most active constituents, reducing the required dosage and side effects and improving the resulting activity in comparison with conventional treatments. Following the trend of using drug delivery systems based on nanotechology, many studies have encouraged the scientific community to turn to the development of new strategies for the vaginal administration of drugs. This study proposes to review the most common nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems that have been used to improve the effectiveness of active compounds administrated to treat vaginal disorders.