Abstract

A REVIEW ON: NANOCARRIERS

Rahul Prabhakar Bhujbal*

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Abstract

Nanotechnologies have attracted increasing attention in their application in medicine, especially in the development of new drug delivery systems. With the help of nano-sized carriers, drugs can reach specific diseased areas, prolonging therapeutic efficacy while decreasing undesired side-effects. In addition, recent nanotechnological advances, such as surface stabilization and stimuliresponsive functionalization have also significantly improved the targeting capacity and therapeutic efficacy of the nanocarrier assisted drug delivery system. In this review, we evaluate recent advances in the development of different nanocarriers and their applications in therapeutics delivery. Nanotechnology has recently gained increased attention for its capability to effectively diagnose and treat various tumours. Nanocarriers have been used to circumvent the problems associated with conventional drug delivery systems, including their no specificity, severe side effects, burst release and damaging the normal cells. Nanocarriers improve the bioavailability and therapeutic efficiency of drugs, while providing preferential accumulation at the target site. A number of nanocarriers have been developed; however, only a few of them are clinically approved for the delivery of drugs for their intended actions at the targeted sites. The present review is divided into three main parts: first part presents introduction of various nanocarriers and their relevance in the delivery of drugs, second part encompasses targeting mechanisms and surface functionalization on nanocarriers and third part covers applications of relative nanocarriers in these tumours. This review increases the understanding of treatment with the promising use of nanotechnology.

Keywords: Nanocarriers, advantages, disadvantages, types of nanocarriers.