Nanocarriers as pulmonary drug delivery systems to treat and to diagnose respiratory and non respiratory diseases

Review

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Authors: Malgorzata Smola, Thierry Vandamme, Adam Sokolowski

Published Date March 2008 Volume 2008:3(1) Pages 1 - 19

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/IJN.S1045

Malgorzata Smola^1,2, Thierry Vandamme¹, Adam Sokolowski²

¹Université Louis Pasteur, Faculté de Pharmacie, Département de Chimie Bioorganique, Illkirch Graffenstaden, France; ²Wroclaw University of Technology, Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Wroclaw, Poland

Abstract: The purpose of this review is to discuss the impact of nanocarriers administered by pulmonary route to treat and to diagnose respiratory and non respiratory diseases. Indeed, during the past 10 years, the removal of chlorofluorocarbon propellants from industrial and household products intended for the pulmonary route has lead to the developments of new alternative products. Amongst these ones, on one hand, a lot of attention has been focused to improve the bioavailability of marketed drugs intended for respiratory diseases and to develop new concepts for pulmonary administration of drugs and, on the other hand, to use the pulmonary route to administer drugs for systemic diseases. This has led to some marketed products through the last decade. Although the introduction of nanotechnology permitted to step over numerous problems and to improve the bioavailability of drugs, there are, however, unresolved delivery problems to be still addressed. These scientific and industrial innovations and challenges are discussed along this review together with an analysis of the current situation concerning the industrial developments.

Keywords: nanotechnology, nanocarriers, nanoparticle, liposome, lung, pulmonary drug delivery, drug targeting, respiratory disease, microemulsion, bioavailability, micelle

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