Semisolid Formulation Containing a Nanoencapsulated Sunscreen: Effectiveness, In Vitro Photostability and Immune Response

The objective of this work was to verify if hydrophilic gels containing benzophenone-3 loaded nanocapsules (HG-NCBZ3) could improve the sunscreen in vitro effectiveness against UVA radiation and its photostability compared to a conventional hydrogel containing the free sunscreen (HG-BZ3). In parallel, the immune response of the nanostructured system was evaluated by mouse ear swelling test and the local lymph node assay. The nanocapsules were prepared by interfacial deposition of poly(epsilon-caprolactone) and characterized in terms of particle size, polydispersity index, zeta potential, drug content and encapsulation efficiency. HG-NCBZ3 UV scans showed higher absorption intensity values than HG-NCplacebo, prepared using unloaded nanocapsules. Films of the gels were irradiated with UVA light and the BZ3 recovery was evaluated by HPLC. BZ3 recovery decreased from 100% to 29% for HG-BZ3 and to 56% for HG-NCBZ3 after 13 h. After wavelength scans within 13 h, the relative areas under the curves (AUC) decreased from 1.00 to 0.62 for HG-BZ3 and remained constant for HG-NCBZ3. Sensitization assay showed that stimulation indexes lower than 3 for all the hydrogel samples. Formulations did not induce increases higher than 10% in ear swelling, indicating that the hydrogels did not cause cutaneous sensitization in mice. The nanoencapsulation improved both the photostability and the effectiveness of BZ3 compared to the non-encapsulated sunscreen and the topical application of free and nanoencapsulated BZ3 did not produced significant allergy response in mice.