Invasomes are novel vesicular systems that exhibit improved transdermal penetration compared to conventional liposomes. These vesicles contain phospholipids, ethanol, and terpene in their structures; these components confer suitable transdermal penetration properties to the soft vesicles. The main advantages of these nanovesicles lie in their ability to increase the permeability of the drug into the skin and decrease absorption into the systemic circulation, thus, limiting the activity of various drugs within the skin layer. In this paper, several features of invasomes, including their structure, mechanism of penetration, applications, characterization, and potential advantages in dermal drug delivery, are highlighted. Overall, this review suggests that enhanced transdermal penetration of drugs using invasomes provides an appropriate opportunity for the development of lipid vesicular carriers.

The developed nanoethosomes are proposed as a suitable carrier for topical delivery of anesthetics such as Lidocaine.

Many traditional procedures, including surgical methods such as microfracture of subchondral bone and soft tissue transplantation, have been widely used to treat damaged cartilage. However, there is still no definitive cure for cartilage defects. In recent decades, tissue engineering has raised hopes for the repair of defective cartilage. Different approaches are used for cartilage engineering, in which cells, scaffolds, and biological signals or growth factors may be used alone or in combination. Additionally, the imitation of the mechanical properties of the natural cartilage tissue by bioreactors is also helpful in this regard. It should be noted that in the transplantation of engineered cartilage tissue, there are challenges such as poor integration, inflammation and phenotypic instability that may lead to failure of neo-cartilage transplantation. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the multiple therapeutic approaches, including surgical procedures, cell-based methods and tissue engineering, should be obtained. The present review article provides this information, along with a variety of factors, including cells, materials, and biological/biomechanical factors required for the engineering of cartilage tissue, as well as the challenges ahead and their solutions.

Background Pain is a vital sense that indicates the risk of injury at a particular body part. Successful control of pain is the principal aspect in medical treatment. In recent years, the advances of nanotechnology in pain management have been remarkable. In this review, we focus on literature and published data that reveal various applications of nanotechnology in acute and chronic pain management. Methods The presented content is based on information collected through pain management publications (227 articles up to April 2021) provided by Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar services. Results A comprehensive study of the articles revealed that nanotechnology-based drug delivery has provided acceptable results in pain control, limiting the side effects and increasing the efficacy of analgesic drugs. Besides the ability of nanotechnology to deliver drugs, sophisticated nanosystems have been designed to enhance imaging and diagnostics, which help in rapid diagnosis of diseases and have a significant impact on controlling pain. Furthermore, with the development of various tools, nanotechnology can accurately measure pain and use these measurements to display the efficiency of different interventions. Conclusions Nanotechnology has started a new era in the pain management and many promising results have been achieved in this regard. Nevertheless, there is still no substantial and adequate act of nanotechnology in this field. Therefore, efforts should be directed to broad investigations. Graphical Abstract