AIDIN DOROUDI - Faculty of Polymer and Color Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, P. O. B ۱۵۹۱۶۳۴۱۱۳,Tehran, Iran
KIMIA SOLEIMANI - Faculty of Medical Sciences, Chalous Azad University, Mazandaran, Iran,

Extensive efforts have been made to administer drugs through alternative routes that are poorly absorbed after oral administration. Vagina has been known as a way of drug delivery since ancient times. In recent years, the vaginal route has been rediscovered as a potential route for the systemic delivery of peptides and other therapeutically important macromolecules. However, successfulvaginal drugdelivery remainsachallenge, mainly due to poor absorption in the vaginal epithelium. The rate and extent of drug absorption after intravaginal administration may vary depending on formulation factors, vaginal physiology, patient age, and menstrual cycle. Vaginal suppositories, creams, gels, pills, and rings are commonly used vaginal drug delivery systems. The main advantages of this route include accessibility, good blood supply, the ability to bypass first-pass hepatic metabolism, and permeability to drugs with large molecular weight such as peptides and proteins. Approaches for effective and stable drug delivery to the female reproductive tract (FRT) is limited to the treatment of a wide range of gynecological conditions. Sol-gel systems, which undergo solution-to-gel transitions induced by physiological conditions such as changes in temperature, pH, or ionic composition, offer the advantages of both solution- and gel-based drug formulations. In addition, they have the potential to be used as a suitable drug delivery vehicle for other new drug formulations, including micro- and nanoparticle systems, which allow the delivery of drug molecules with diverse physicochemical properties.

Vagina; Drug delivery; Contraception; Vaginal enzymes; sol-gel formulations