Critical Reviews in Therapeutic Drug Carrier Systems

Cancer is referred to as a pleiotropic disease-causing approximately 9.6 million deaths in 2018. Among all cancers, lung cancer was the leading cause of death in 2017, and 12% of fatalities were alone due to lung cancer. The associated risk factors in lung cancer include smoking (80-85%), chronic inflammation in the lungs, COPD, pulmonary fibrosis, environmental and occupational exposure to nickel, arsenic, chromates, etc. Early diagnosed patients' treatment plan includes chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, and tumor ablation...

Skin aging is the progressive biological process generally characterized by the appearance of wrinkles, age spots, sagging of skin, and dryness. Since skin is an essential part of physical appearance, this has led to increased concerns about skincare. Anti-aging products help in improving the quality and health of the skin by nourishing it. However, due to large particle size they are less efficacious. Nanotechnological approaches for topical anti-aging products have a significant effect on the product performance...

Nanomedicine, a promising addition to the spectrum of biomedicine, has viewed countless breakthroughs in the implementations of "site-specific" drug delivery. The promises of nanomedicines revolve around their unique physicochemical properties that permit the transport of therapeutics to the desired site of action, improve the pharmacokinetic endpoint, maximize the pharmacological influence of treatment, and overcome the limitation of remedies that otherwise would impede the therapeutic effectiveness. One of most insurmountable challenge possessed by conventional drug-delivery in getting therapeutics across the central-nervous-system is to conquer the harsh passage of the blood-brain barrier (BBB)...

Probiotics colonize in the gastrointestinal tract and regulate the homeostasis in healthy human hosts. These protect the host against putrefactive organisms and secrete soluble factors exhibiting important transductive roles. However, constitutive processes in human host are deregulated following dysbiosis caused during prolonged exposure to cytotoxic agents and pollutants. Apart from restoring the homeostasis, probiotic administration has shown to minimize carcinogenesis and post-surgery complications in cancer patients...

In the last few years, the polymeric micelles played a major role as a drug carrier in nano-sized drug delivery system. The polymeric micelles are designed from synthetic block co-polymers and graft copolymers. In the mixed micelles, the bilayer lipid membrane and surfactants are used. Both micelles are in nano-sized and used to enhance the drug delivery to treat different diseases. In this review, we will discuss some examples from the literature included demonstrating the polymeric micelles used as drug-carriers in skin cancer treatment by using different drugs...

Self-emulsifying drug delivery systems (SEDDS) are lipid-based isotropic mixtures that enhance the bioavailability of poorly water-soluble drugs and reduce the possible side effects, offering a wide variety of treatments for several pathologies. The aim of this review is to discuss the state of the art of patents for this drug delivery system by studying recent patent applications (2011 to 2020). We performed a thorough screening using the European Patent Office's Espacenet database, from which 37 inventions were selected and fully studied...

Most of the oral drug delivery systems demand better retention of drug in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) for better bioavailability. One of the tools for better gastric retention of the drug is to administer it as a floating drug delivery system (FDDS) by reducing its density, compared to the gastric fluids. This system is helpful to overcome the problems associated with the conventional pharmaceutical dosage forms. The present work is an effort to systematically review the latest advancements in FDDS with a major spotlight on how these systems act to make the dosage form float in the gastric fluid for the slow release, better gastric retention, and improved bioavailability of the orally administered drug...

Orodispersible films (ODFs) have served as an emerging platform for the delivery of drugs in a convenient way. They have numerous advantages, the significant one is simplicity of administration for special populations such as pediatric and geriatric as well as patients with swallowing difficulty. Besides, the advantages include accurate dosing and fast action. The ODFs are efficiently designed with detailed knowledge of drug and polymers as well as a suitable selection of method. Many conventional and advance formulation strategies have been used for the development of ODFs...

Bioactive peptides have gained the attention and interest of researchers and the industry for their therapeutic effects and high specificity, thus reducing the risks of side effects and making them an attractive alternatives in developing new biopharmaceuticals or cosmeceuticals. Nevertheless, their incorporation into formulations and administration presents challenges such as low stability under different storage conditions and gastrointestinal degradation after oral delivery. Likewise, the parenteral route is an invasive method that is painful and therefore reduces patient compliance...

In recent years, allergies are on the rise. The growth of allergies cases has changed the immune system's response to new pathogens. The therapy used to treat these diseases is based on allergen avoidance, pharmacotherapy and allergen-specific immunotherapy. The last one has received a lot of interest in the research field, due to the possibility of leading the patient to a cure. In this sense, new allergen immunotherapy need to be developed or improved to increase safety and efficiency. This review aims to evaluate patents published, from 2015 to July 2020, that have developed allergic immunotherapy treatment and administration routes, as well as new alternatives of vehicles, carriers and delivery systems in this context...

Nanocarriers are nanostructured vehicles employed to deliver anticancer drugs to the targeted tumor sites in the body. Nanocarriers have been successfully employed to circumvent certain limitations of conventional anticancer drug delivery while providing greater bioavailability, prolonged circulation time and higher tumor accumulation for enhanced therapeutic outcomes in cancer treatment. Nanocarriers are also responsive to functionalization to tailor their pharmaco-kinetics and achieve enhanced therapeutic outcomes in cancer therapy...

Oral cancer is the 11th most common cancer in the world with a high morbidity rate. Various conventional therapies have been used for the treatment of oral cancer such as surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy used either alone or in combination but these have many limitations, making them unsuitable for treating oral cancer. Nanotechnology has been emerged out as an innovative tool in the field of oral cancer which has proved to provide effective results overcoming the limitations of conventional drug therapies...

Exosomes are endogenous extracellular vesicles (30-100 nm) composed with membrane lipid bilayer which carry vesicular proteins, enzymes, mRNA, miRNA and nucleic acids. They act as messengers for intra- and inter-cellular communication. In addition to their physiological roles, exosomes have the potential to encapsulate and deliver small chemotherapeutic drugs and biological molecules such as proteins and nucleic acid-based drugs to the recipient tissue or organs. Due to their biological properties, exosomes have better organotropism, homing capacity, cellular uptake and cargo release ability than other synthetic nano-drug carriers such as liposomes, micelles and nanogels...

This article aims to provide a comprehensive review of Cissus quadrangularis (CQ), which is a traditional medicinal herb and has a potential osteoprotective effect. CQ is a perennial climber of family Vitaceae that is commonly found in the hotter parts of India. It is most widely used in India for improving bone health and is well known as "hadjod." It shows an anti-osteoporotic effect through different pathways mechanisms. It is natural matrices of excellence with proven bioactivity. Several cell line and animal studies demonstrated its protective nature against many diseases such as osteoporosis, arthritis, gastric ulcers etc...

Applications of nanoceria in the biomedical field are quite promising, as previous data has shown potential use of nanoceria as therapeutics via radical scavenging and oxidative stress mitigating properties. But, still, there are contradicting reports regarding nanoceria activity, mode of action, and in vitro toxicity in the cell. There are different nanoceria synthesis methods and Ligands for functionalization and loading of nanoceria into drugs for targeted drug delivery. Redox chemistry of nanoceria exerts their anticancer properties through apoptosis and oxidative stress as it can switch between Ce3+ and Ce4+ and act as free radical scavengers...

Several ocular drug delivery (ODD) systems, like hydrogels, microparticles, nano-emulsions, micro-emulsions, and liposomes have been researched, which can govern the drug release and sustain therapeutic levels for a delayed period in the eye. While new drugs targeting methods to the eye are possible by various nanoparticles. Presently in the market, there are fewer choices and need for novel nano-ocular delivery systems as well as therapies for prolonged delivery to the anterior and posterior eye segments. The primary objective of this article is to summarize current discoveries and proven activities of different nano- and microsystems in ODD...

Nanodiamonds (ND) belong to the nano-carbon family, which involves several synthesis, post-synthesis methods, and other modifications for ND preparation. NDs have played vital role both inside and outside of medicine in recent years. The study of NDs has stated in early 1960s, NDs are smaller particles with a size of about 4-5 nm with confined size distribution, large-scale synthesis at lower costs relying on the carbon explosives ignition, apparent surface functional design along with bio-conjugation and extreme biocompatibility...

Melanoma is one of the most aggressive forms of cancer with limited treatment options available. Successful treatment involves a combination of surgical resection of the tumor; chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Given their complex nature, the rapid development of drug resistance and metastatic spread, nanotechnology-based therapeutics are an attractive option for effective melanoma treatment. Nano-vesicular-based delivery systems hold the promise of aiding in the diagnosis and treatment of melanoma. These formulations can improve targeted delivery, deliver insoluble drugs belonging to class II, biopharmaceutical classification system, and alter drug pharmacokinetics and exposure profiles...

The outbreak of novel coronavirus (nCoV) or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, has posed an international public health emergency worldwide and forced people to be confined in their homes. This virus is of high-risk category and is declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). The worldwide researchers and various health professionals are working together to determine the best way to stop its spread or halt this virus's spread and circumvent this pandemic condition threatening millions of human lives...

Targeting drug delivery has been a focus of researchers in recent years for cancer and other diseases. Many approaches such as liposomes, exosomes, nanoparticles (magnetic), encapsulation etc. have been developed and investigated for their clinical applications. But disadvantages linked to these therapies limit them to be used in clinical settings. Cell based drug delivery systems has emerged as an alternative for these therapies. Among cell types, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) proved to a potential cell type for research due to its many characteristics including low immunogenicity, chemotaxis and homing to tumor sites which are considered mandatory for drug delivery...