Preparation, Characterization and Applications of Liposomes: State of the Art

Liposomes, spherical-shaped nanovesicles, were discovered in the 60ies by Bangham. Since that, they were extensively studied as potential drug carrier. Due to their composition variability and structural properties, liposomes are extremely versatile leading to a large number of applications including pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industrial fields. This bibliographic paper offers a general review on the background and development of liposomes with a focus on preparation methods including classic (thin film hydration, reverse-phase evaporation, ethanol injection...) and novel scalable techniques. Furthermore, liposome characterization techniques including mean size, zetapotential, lamellarity, encapsulation efficiency, in vitro drug release, vesicles stability and lipid analysis synthesized from different published works are reported. The current deepening and widening of liposome interest in many scientific disciplines and their application in pharmaceutics, cosmetics and food industries as promising novel breakthroughs and products were also handled. Finally, an opinion on the usefulness of liposomes in various applications ranging from unsubstantiated optimism to undeserved pessimism is given. The obtained information allows establishing criteria for selecting liposomes as a drug carrier according to its advantages and limitations.