Microemulsion: promising and novel system for drug delivery

Abstract

Microemulsions are based on oil, water and surfactants and mostly in combination of cosurfactant. The resultant mixture is a stable heterogeneous system and has advantage over the conventional emulsion as well as over solution formulations. For topical, oral and parenteral administration, microemulsion acts as a potential carrier system. The main reason of selecting the microemulsion (ME) as drug delivery system is that it is easy to prepare, have ability to incorporate hydrophobic drug, stable and it exhibits more physical stability as compared to other vesicular systems. The purpose of this review is to present the applications of microemulsions and to understand the important facts of this novel delivery system.