Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Drug delivery is the physical or chemical method of combining small molecule drug with polymer carrier to release small molecule drug at the appropriate concentration through diffusion and permeation approaches to achieve a therapeutic effect in the body.
OBJECTIVE: To study the characteristics and application of drug delivery materials in the field of medicine.
METHODS: A computer based search of CNKI and PubMed databases was conducted to retrieve relevant articles published between 1993-01 and 2010-11 using the keywords of “drug delivery, carrier material, biodegradable, chitosan, polylactic acid, sodium alginate” in Chinese and English. Articles about polymer biomaterials and drug delivery carriers were searched. Repetitive articles or Meta analysis were excluded. Finally, 31 papers were included in result analysis.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Chitosan and polylactic acid are commonly seen in the drug delivery system, which combines small molecule drug with polymer carrier by physical or chemical methods for sustained release at the appropriate concentrations to achieve a therapeutic effect. They have more significant advantages than single biomaterials, and possess a better biocompatibility and biodegradability. At present, a lot of research is still in experimental stage, and there are some problems to be solved, such as the immature preparation approach, difficulty to control dosage, and high cost.