Formulation and Evaluation of Medicated Nail Lacquer for the Treatment of Onychomycosis

Onychomycosis is fungal infection of toenails or fingernails caused by a fungal microbe that invades the nail. The purpose of the present investigation is to formulate and evaluate an antifungal nail lacquer for treatment of onychomycosis. These formulations require high concentration of active agents to be incorporated for effective therapy because of their low efficacy. Topical therapy would be an attractive alternative approach in the treatment of onychomycosis as it is found to be capable of overcoming most of the limitations of systemic administration and targeting the drug at its site of action, with minimum interactions and adverse effects. Ciclopirox was chosen as a model drug, the formulations were prepared with permeation enhancers Salicylic acid. Then, these lacquers were compared for drying time, nonvolatile content drug content, drug diffusion and anti -microbial studies. From Diffusion studies across artificial membrane, For 12 hours, diffusion tests were conducted on all of the formulations using an artificial membrane Formulation F6 showed percentage drug release 93.2%.Thebest nail lacquer formulation was selected based on drug diffusion trials.