School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, United States.
Curr Pharm Des. 2018;24(21):2394-2402. doi: 10.2174/1381612824666180524103341.
As the quick development of modern methods and technologies currently, more and more drugs have been invented with a better efficiency. However, the poor water solubility has limited the drugs' pharmaceutical application.
Tremendous research has been put in the design and development of nanocrystals for pharmaceutical applications over the past few decades. The nanocrystals not only have the chance to solve the poor solubility problem, but also could conquer the bioavailability and even the specific delivery problems. The physical properties of drugs can be changed dramatically due to the change of their size in a nanodimension. Therefore, the nanocrystals have great potential to overcome the challenge to design and development of new drugs for pharmaceutical applications.
In this review, we provide an overview of the recent trends in nanocrystals for pharmaceutical applications.
The current technologies including top-down, bottom-up, and combinative technologies for nanocrystals were fully examined. Most importantly, the emphasis is put on the pharmaceutical applications including their formulation, administration methods, safety, and toxicity. The commercial status, limitations, challenges, and future trends of the nanocrystals for pharmaceutical applications were also discussed.
随着现代方法和技术的快速发展，目前已经发明了越来越多效率更高的药物。然而，较差的水溶性限制了药物的药用应用。
在过去的几十年中，人们投入了大量的研究来设计和开发用于药物应用的纳米晶体。纳米晶体不仅有机会解决溶解度差的问题，而且还可以克服生物利用度甚至特定的递药问题。由于药物的尺寸在纳米尺寸上发生变化，因此药物的物理性质可能会发生巨大变化。因此，纳米晶体在克服药物设计和开发方面的挑战方面具有巨大的潜力。
在这篇综述中，我们概述了纳米晶体在药物应用方面的最新趋势。
本文全面考察了用于纳米晶体的自上而下、自下而上和组合技术等当前技术。最重要的是，重点介绍了包括制剂、给药方法、安全性和毒性在内的药物应用。还讨论了纳米晶体在药物应用方面的商业状况、局限性、挑战和未来趋势。
