Abstract
Author(s): R. Sunitha, K. Suria prabha and P. Muthu Prasanna
Now a day’s pulmonary drug delivery remains the favourite route for administration of various drugs. Pulmonary route has concerned as a tremendous scientific and biomedical importance in recent years due to its unique properties such as a large absorptive area of up to 100m2 and it has particularly thin 0.1 μm - 0.2 μm absorptive mucosal membrane and good blood supply. Targeted drug delivery to the lungs has evolved to be one of the most widely investigated systemic or local drug delivery approach. As time goes on, the drug delivery systems (DDS) for the treatment of pulmonary diseases are increased due to their potential for localized topical therapy in the lungs. This route also makes it possible to deposit drugs more site-specific at high concentrations within the diseased lung thereby reducing the overall amount of drug given to patients, as well as increasing local drug activity while reducing systemic side effects and first-pass metabolism. Generally half of all pharmaceuticals are not soluble in water, but are soluble in lipid. As the lung is able to absorb both water and oil into the tissue, this is not a restriction of pulmonary delivery. This present review discusses the advantages, current challenges in drug delivery to lungs, and recent advances in new technologies, devices, formulation, and applications for pulmonary drug delivery system.