Duaa Jabar Sibti1,
Muqdad Alhijjaj1,2 
,
Dawood Chaloob Al_Bahadily3
For correspondence:- Muqdad Alhijjaj Email: muqdad.mousa@uobasrah.edu.iq
Received: 23 May 2026 Accepted: 19 August 2026 Published: 31 August 2026
Citation: Sibti DJ, Alhijjaj M, Al_Bahadily DC. Topical delivery enhancement of ketoconazole by utilizing novasomal vesicular systems. Trop J Pharm Res 2026; 25(8):1039-1049 doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/tjpr.v25i8.1
© 2026 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..
Purpose: To determine the antifungal activity of ketoconazole-loaded novasomal delivery systems. Method: Ethanol injection method was used to fabricate ketoconazole-loaded novasomes using stearic acid (SA) and oleic acid (OA) as free fatty acids (FFA), with the surfactant (SAA) being Span 60, Brij 35, or a combination. Also, cholesterol (CHO) was added as a membrane stabilizer. Results: Cumulative drug release at 8 h for F9 was 87.33 ± 8.67 %, compared with 18.6 ± 4.96 % for pure ketoconazole suspension. Korsmeyer-Peppas model best fit the data (R2 = 0.987), and the n exponent was 0.615, suggesting non-Fickian diffusion (diffusion with membrane bilayer relaxation). Furthermore, F9 showed a high inhibition zone diameter (25 ± 2.6 mm and 23 ± 2.5 mm) on Candida albicans and Aspergillus niger, respectively, at 800 µg/mL compared to blank novasomes and pure ketoconazole suspension. The stability study demonstrated that F9 was best stored at 2 - 8 °C. Conclusion: The novasomes showed narrow PDI, potentiating the activity of ketoconazole by improving drug release and diffusion, and enhancing permeation through the fungal cell wall.
Fulltext in PDF