中药挥发油作为透皮吸收促进剂的现状与展望

Current situation and future outlook on essential oils from Chinese materia medica as penetration enhancers

应用透皮吸收促进剂是目前最常用的改善透皮吸收效果的手段之一。中药挥发油大多具有良好的透皮吸收促进效果与轻微的皮肤刺激,并且还具有一定的治疗效果,因此作为透皮吸收促进剂应用具有良好的前景。对中药挥发油的透皮促渗效果、作用机制、安全性以及自身的透皮吸收进行综述,在分析现状的同时,对于存在的主要问题,即制剂应用的规范性以及体外透皮吸收评价的局限性问题进行了分析。在此基础上提出了研究思路:中药挥发油的透皮吸收促进作用确切,但围绕着其适用范围、应用剂型、作用机制还需要进行规范化研究,并且应注重中医药理论的指导作用。

Application of penetration enhancers（PE） is one of the most commonly used strategies to improve the percutaneous absorption. Most essential oils from Chinese materia medica（CMM） possess the good ability to enhance percutaneous absorption, minor skin irritation, and certain therapeutic efficacy. Therefore, the research on essential oils as PE has good prospects. In the present paper, the percutaneous absorption enhancing effects, mechanism of action, safety, and transdermal absorption of essential oils from CMM are reviewed. Moreover, the existing main problems, namely the confusing application of pharmaceutical preparations and the limitation of in vitro percutaneous absorption evaluations, are summarized and analyzed. Then the research ideas are proposed on the basis of the analysis results. The application scope, dosage forms, and mechanism of action of essential oils from CMM as PE should be further studied and standardized. More attention should be paid to the guiding role of CMM theory.