[The liver-cell specific drug delivery system].

There have been a growing interest in the area of liver-cell specific drug delivery in recent years. This may be because of the failure of pharmacological approaches to cure the liver diseases due to the nonspecific delivery towards other organs and several side effects. Currently it has been demonstrated that liver-cell specific drug delivery can be achieved by coupling drugs to various ligands containing carrier systems such as polymers, liposomes and proteins. Saccharide, LDL and bile acids were employed as cell specific ligands. These carriers can be used as shuttles for targeting drugs specifically towards liver cells such as hepatocytes and non-parenchymal cells.