Abstract

PULMONARY DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM: CURRENT PRACTICES AND APPLICATIONS

Praful Kadam*, Hema Kanekar and Anubha Khale

Abstract

Pulmonary route of drug delivery is gaining much importance in the present day research field as it enables to target the drug delivery directly to lungs, both for local and systemic treatment. It has the potential of a pulmonary route as an non-invasive administration for systemic delivery of therapeutic agents due to the fact that the lungs could provide a large absorptive surface area (up to 100m2) but extremely thin (0.1μm – 0.2μm) absorptive mucosal membrane and good blood supply. Respiratory system mainly consists of three regionsnasopharyngeal region, tracheo-bronchial region and Alveolar region.For this region‟s most commonly used devices are nebulizers, metered-dose inhalers, and dry powder inhalers, they can be used for protein and peptide drugs.Pulmonary drug delivery is used not only for management of pulmonary disease but also for treatment of diabetes, angina pectoris, cancer, bone disorders, genetic disorders. This review discusses about basic anatomical principles, basis of drug absorption from lungs, mechanism of drug deposition, method to manufacture pulmonary drug delivery system and its quality requirement. The current practices such as administration of drug carriers through liposomes, nano and microparticles, cyclodextrins, micro emulsions, micelles, suspensions, or solutions are included and these pharmaceutical carriers can be further explored to target drugs into the lungs for treatment of various ailments.

Keywords: nebulizers, metered-dose inhalers, dry powder inhalers, diabetes, anginapectoris, cancer, liposomes, etc.