Advanced drug delivery systems for antithrombotic agents

Despite continued achievements in antithrombotic pharmacotherapy, difficulties remain in managing patients at high risk for both thrombosis and hemorrhage. Utility of antithrombotic agents (ATAs) in these settings is restricted by inadequate pharmacokinetics and narrow therapeutic indices. Use of advanced drug delivery systems (ADDSs) may help to circumvent these problems. Various nanocarriers, affinity ligands, and polymer coatings provide ADDSs that have the potential to help optimize ATA pharmacokinetics, target drug delivery to sites of thrombosis, and sense pathologic changes in the vascular microenvironment, such as altered hemodynamic forces, expression of inflammatory markers, and structural differences between mature hemostatic and growing pathological clots. Delivery of ATAs using biomimetic synthetic carriers, host blood cells, and recombinant fusion proteins that are activated preferentially at sites of thrombus development has shown promising outcomes in preclinical models. Further development and translation of ADDSs that spare hemostatic fibrin clots hold promise for extending the utility of ATAs in the management of acute thrombotic disorders through rapid, transient, and targeted thromboprophylaxis. If the potential benefit of this technology is to be realized, a systematic and concerted effort is required to develop clinical trials and translate the use of ADDSs to the clinical arena.