Lipid bilayer fragments and disks in drug delivery.

Certain lipids can be dispersed as colloidally stable bilayer fragments (BF) or disks with interesting properties for solubilization and delivery of hydrophobic or amphiphilic drugs. They were first observed and characterized as such in the nineties but remained silent in the literature regarding applications for drug delivery. Only recently their potential for delivery of hydrophobic drugs started to be realized. This review deals with electrostatically or sterically stabilized bilayer fragments which provided excellent solubilization sites for antifungal drugs, acted as drugs themselves against bacteria or fungus, could be loaded with amphiphilic drugs or produced lipid-covered drug particles to be delivered as a synergistic formulation in vivo.