Developments on carboxymethyl starch-based smart systems as promising drug carriers: A review

Conventional drug administrations are associated with low bioavailability, high cost, more side effects, uncontrolled release profile, and patient noncompliance. Therefore, the development of an alternative to traditional drug delivery systems (DDSs) is of crucial significance. Up to now, various materials have been investigated for these purposes, among them, carboxymethyl starch (CMS) owing to its specific advantages has been studied for extensively drug delivery, particularly for oral administration. This review for the first time provides an outline of the CMS application in all areas of drug delivery. Thus, the major focus of this review is the detailed highlighting of the recent advances in CMS based DDSs to offer comprehensive information for overcoming traditional DDSs. The perspectives and the challenges of the CMS-based DDSs are briefly commented as well as. Hopefully, the current review will help to promotion of new innovative types of CMS-based systems for drug delivery applications in the near future.