Drug Delivery And Its Effect On The Body

Nanocarriers (NCs) have emerged as a favored drug delivery approach towards improving the anticancer benefits of several bioactives for cancer therapy with recent reports showing the application of NC systems in clinical settings [18]. The NCs with size < 100 nm have been associated with enhanced permeation and retention effect (EPR) due to the presence of leaky vasculature in the tumor tissues which contributes to its enhanced efficacy. Also recently, NCs have shown to be effective in the treatment of malignant mesothelioma [19]. A recent study by Kanai et al. showed that the NC albumin-bound paclitaxel and carboplatin (nabPC) repetitively achieved tumor regression in malignant mesothelioma

This knowledge of the cell membrane and nucleus of cells was reinforced when reading this article. The article mentioned the membranes of the platelets and how the anticancer drug, doxorubicin, attacks the nucleus of a cancer cell. In class, we extensively studied the cell membrane which is mentioned several times in this article. The nucleus of the cancer cell, which regulates and contains the instructions for producing essential proteins for the cell, is attacked by the platelet covered drug,

Oral delivery of anti-cancer drugs is a greater advancement in chemotherapy, which offers “Treatment at Home” a dream of cancer patients that improves patient compliance with reduced adverse effects. Cancer chemotherapy, mostly involves parenteral administration of anti-cancer drugs either by intravenous infusion or bolus injection, which is associated with serious side effects due to high plasma drug levels above maximum tolerable concentration (MTC) and is also less effective route due to the short exposure time of anti-cancer drugs to cancerous tissue by rapid excretion of the drug from systemic circulation [1]. In contrast, oral chemotherapy improves therapeutic efficiency by maintaining reasonable plasma drug levels, prolonged exposure time of anti-cancer drugs and avoids side effects by maintaining the drug concentration below MTC by moderate prolonged absorption from the gastrointestinal tract into systemic circulation [2]. Docetaxel is a highly effective second-generation taxane anticancer drug used in the treatment of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, non-small cell lung cancer and other tumors [3-6]. However, oral delivery of docetaxel has negligible oral bioavailability ( 99.9%). Accurately weighed sample (4 mg) was placed in a flat bottomed standard aluminium pan and scanned at a scanning speed of 10°C/min from 30○C to 300○C under a nitrogen gas flow of 80 mL/min.

Pellets coated with polymer not soluble under gi conditions releases drug by 4 different mechanisms:

This paper addresses the dire need for a non-viral delivery vehicle that is both effective and clinically safe (Lee et al., 2017).

The most clinically effective treatments for cancer were ironically incredibly detrimental to the human body 's health. These included, chemotherapy and radiation. These two methods did in fact destroy the malignant cells yet also caused apoptosis in healthy cells damaging them beyond repair and thus causing a great detriment to the patients health. However, recently, due to the endeavours of nanotechnology, it has been discovered that carbon nanotubes can effectively carry anti cancer drugs destroying the malignant cancer cells without damaging the healthy cells, in other words, the

3. Beads received much attention not only for prolonged release, but also for targeting of anticancer drugs to the tumour.

Drug delivery systems (DDS) have been developed in order to control pharmacological parameters such as bioavailability, biodistribution and pharmacokinetics of the administered substances. Bioavailability is defined as the percentage of an administered dose of therapeutic agent that becomes available in the systemic circulation in its active form. Drug delivery systems can enhance bioavailability by increasing in-vivohalf-lives of fragile pharmaceuticals e.g. protection of proteins from enzymatic degradation or by changing their chemical characteristics - e.g. improving solubility of hydrophobic moieties. Biodistribution is defined as the percentage of an administered drug that becomes deposited into specific organs throughout the body at specific time points. Drug delivery systems can alter the biodistribution of a drug by active targeting of specific cell types, passive targeting (accumulation in certain tissues), retention at the injection site or by helping to cross biological barriers.

Innovation is the key word in the present era. As scientists are engrossed in development of newer drug molecules, there has also been a continuous demand for the development of delivery forms for these drugs. The main focus is on achieving reduced dosage and to make the drugs more cost effective.

The selection of an appropriate dosage form is critical because a dosage form with poor drug delivery can make a useful drug worthless. A large percent of these new chemical entities (NCEs) in addition to many existing parent drugs often show poor solubilization behaviour which lead to poor oral bioavailability with wide intra- and inter- subject variation and present formulators with considerable technical challenges. [1] Many approaches have been meticulously explored to improve the oral bioavailability of such drugs including particle size reduction (micronization or nanosizing), complexation, and modification of the physicochemical properties. [2, 3]

This presentation will introduce you to the use and function of Carbon Nanotubes in the delivery of pharmaceuticals in medicine. Nanotechnology is a developing science that involves the manipulation of materials. This is executed on the scale of fewer than 100 nanometers. The goal of this technology is to optimise the utility and therefore increase the control of atoms and molecules. This presentation will explain what carbon nanotubes are, the purpose of using them in the delivery of pharmaceuticals in medicine and of course how they have improved scientific research so far.

Individuals in the twenty-first century live in a technology-based society that is revolutionizing lifestyles with medical, industrial, and environmental improvements. Nanotechnology, being one of the century’s popular technologies, is the research and application of miniscule objects in fields ranging from engineering to chemistry. It is conducted at a nanoscale system—a scale that is 1000 times smaller than the components currently used in the microelectronics field (“What is Nanotechnology?”). This technology has led to life-changing developments in the biomedical field, which is a combined area of science, engineering, and medicine, and is applied to molecular imaging, molecular diagnosis, as well as targeted therapy (Nie). A targeted

Cancer is one of the main leading causes of deaths worldwide. The reason for this is due to the poor results of the conventional chemotherapy. The primary cause of this is owing to the lack of selectivity of these drugs. Low molecular weight drugs can enter all types of cells by random diffusion, hence they not only attack tumor cells but they also attack healthy cells with the same potency resulting in severe toxicity. Hence, scientists need to develop strategies to selectively target drugs to tumor cells, to prevent the toxic side effects. One of the most effective strategies to overcome this problem is to exploit the anatomical and pathophysiological abnormalities of tumor tissues such as the enhanced permeation and retention (EPR) effect for anticancer drug delivery. EPR effect is basically the gradual accumulation and retention of certain size molecules (such as nanoparticles, liposomes and macromolecular drugs) in tumor tissues.

Cancer is a disease that involves abnormal growth of cells with a danger of spreading over other parts of the body. Modern biological researches being made to treat different forms of cancer have all been using one common material: nanoparticles. These particles have properties useful for the treatment of cancer like their stability in solvents, the adjustable surface chemistry for delivery, and the ideal size to deliver bio organic ligands to cells1. Even combining together nanoparticles with different functionality increases their potential use in cancer treatment. The common use of the particles in treatment is to direct them to target cells with antibodies attached to their surfaces. There is a monetary limitation to this method needing large and expensive machines. Some methods require the particles to be heated with a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine or an electromagnetic field which causes death of cells around the target cells.

Drug delivery is the process by which a pharmaceutical drug is delivered to the patient to provide medical treatment to ameliorate the well-being of the patient and prolong their lifespan. While pharmaceutical drugs have shown to be of great aid in the treatment of patients injecting foreign compounds throughout the entire body can be hazardous and cause unforeseen consequences. The side effects of some drugs are can prove to be life-threatening if consumed irregularly and even under the best conditions drugs can still have nasty side-effects. To try and solve this issue biomedical engineers have designed several drug delivery systems to combat this issue. There were three main factors that were considered to minimize the damage done by pharmaceutical drugs. The first thing that was needed to be done was to increase the drug acting period and this was generally achieved by linking the drug with macromolecules or encapsulating the drug within a polymer. The next major contribution was to enhance the targeting ability of the drug so the drug found the site of action instead of spreading itself randomly throughout the body; this was done mainly through the use of linking the drug with an antibody and ligand so it would react to the a certain type of cell as well as avoid natural defenses placed by the host’s body. After the drug reached the site of action the release of the drug needed to be controlled at the action site (such as tissues/organs) and this was done through