Targeted Drug Delivery and Nanotechnology: An Overview

Abstract

Targeted drug delivery is a special form of drug delivery system where the medicament is selectively delivered or targeted only its site of action and keeping rest part of the body relatively free. Drug is a substance used for prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure of a disease.Drug and medicine are synonym of each other and commonly used interchangeable. But there is minor difference in between both the terms. Drug is a broad term while medicine is a part of drug. A drug can be administered in the human body by three major routes-enteral, parenteral and topical.Both enteral and parenteral routes are specific for generalized actions therefore linked with systematic side effects while topical route is meant for localized action therefore devoid from such effects. Targeted approach has s advantage over traditional systems because drug can be administered in less dose compared with conventional drug delivery system thereby improve efficacy and reduces the side effects. Currently large numbers of targeted drug delivery methods are available and nanotechnology is one of them.Application of nanotechnology in medical science developed a new field of medical nanotechnology also referred as nanomedicine.Nanotechnology has provided the possibility of delivering drug to specific cells using nanoparticles. As a result of which,the overall drug consumption and side effect may be lowered significantly by depositing the active drug in morbid region only.