Nano-based drug delivery systems: Conventional drug delivery routes, recent developments and future prospects

Drug delivery can be defined as the group of approaches a drug or pharmacologically active agent can be transported to the target cell to treat disease or health issue. Conventional routes for drug delivery are oral, buccal, rectal, subcutaneous, intranasal, intramuscular, intravenous, pulmonary and transdermal. These are the commonly used methods for treatment of various medical problems but have certain limitations such as instability, risk of displacement, uncontrolled release, side effect such as irritation and pain, slow absorption, enzymatic deterioration and many others. Incorporation of drug into nanocarrier is one of the efficient methods for targeted and sustained delivery of drug. Applications of…