Thermo-responsive systems for controlled drug delivery

Controlled drug delivery systems represent advanced systems that can be tightly modulated by stimuli in order to treat diseases in which sustained drug release is undesirable. Among the many different stimuli-sensitive delivery systems, temperature-sensitive drug delivery systems offer great potential over their counterparts due to their versatility in design, tunability of phase transition temperatures, passive targeting ability and in situ phase transitions. Thus, thermosensitive drug delivery systems can overcome many of the hurdles of conventional drug delivery systems in order to increase drug efficacies, drug targeting and decrease drug toxicities. In an effort to further control existing temperature-responsive systems, current innovative applications have combined temperature with other stimuli such as pH and light. The result has been the development of highly sophisticated systems, which demonstrate exquisite control over drug release and represent huge advances in biomedical research.