Nanomedicine in pulmonary delivery

This chapter discusses the use of nanomedicine for pulmonary drug delivery. Nanomedicines contain nanoparticles. Interest in utilizing nanoparticles has been driven by various unique properties that materials attain when they enter the nanoscale. For example, well-known nanoparticle advantages include targeted drug delivery, enhancing cellular and intracellular delivery, increasing dissolution, and availability of drug. These advantages that have initiated large-scale research efforts in general, have also led the researchers to investigate nanoparticulate systems for respiratory delivery. By using the pulmonary route for drug delivery, one can avoid systemic side effects, utilize relatively mild conditions for low drug degradation, increase efficacy, and reduce dosing frequency by targeted dose to the site of action and obtain relatively noninvasive delivery. In addition, nanoparticles can offer an advantage in case of pulmonary delivery by avoiding their clearance by the macrophages due to their small size, which may be important in minimizing loss of inhaled drugs to maximize the drug retention and bioavailability. This chapter reviews nanoparticle technology, its potential use for lung delivery, the types of systems that have been studied the methodology for nanoparticles production, applications, and the potential safety of these systems.