The use of N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide to enhance dermal and transdermal delivery of drugs.

A dermal penetration enhancer has been found which improves the dermal delivery of a wide variety of drugs and at the same time has a history of low toxicity for human dermal application. N,N-Diethyl-m-toluamide (I) has been shown to improve the delivery of many drugs through hairless mouse skin in an in vitro diffusion cell model. A topically applied steroid, hydrocortisone, has been used to demonstrate the in vivo effectiveness of I on human skin. The degree of pallor produced on human skin by the corticosteroids was used as a measure of the relative delivery of hydrocortisone from formulations with and without I.