Localized drug delivery systems review

Abstract

Cancer is the 2nd leading cause of death in the world and killed 8.8 million people in 2015 alone. [1] The leading causes of cancer that being of prostate and breast cancer in males and females respectively. A cure for cancer to this day has remained elusive, with only chemotherapy as its only recourse. Chemotherapy then falls into 2 categories namely, general chemotherapy and localized chemotherapy. As chemotherapy involves the genocide of cells regardless of their purpose and function, general chemotherapy ultimately results in weakening the immune system of the patient as a side effect. Wherein the case of localized chemotherapy, the impact of such side effects can be managed to a degree. This was and remains a key reason as to why localized drugs and their delivery mechanism is a pioneering field of research. Research in localized drug delivery stands to improve human life expectancy by solving problems relating to cancer and other localized diseases currently discovered or yet to be discovered. Advances in localized drug delivery stand to benefit not just disease killing drugs but also fields such as the supplements industry and sports science, such as by focusing hormonal effects on certain muscles or improving drug efficiency for drugs that target certain systems or organs. Advances in localized drug delivery and by extension localized drugs has a far-reaching impact on human life and will remain a research topic long into the future for when humanity inevitably discovers new diseases that occur naturally or by human design