pH and its applications in targeted drug delivery
Sadikalmahdi Abdella1, Fatima Abid2, Souha H Youssef2
1Centre for Pharmaceutical Innovation (CPI), University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia; Department of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacy, College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, Zambia St, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Abstract:
Physiologic pH is vital for the normal functioning of tissues and varies in different parts of the body. The varying pH of the body has been exploited to design pH-sensitive smart oral, transdermal and vaginal drug delivery systems (DDS). The DDS demonstrated promising results in hard-to-treat diseases such as cancer and Helicobacter pylori infection. In some cases, a change in pH of tissues or body fluids has also been employed as a useful diagnostic biomarker. This paper aims to comprehensively review the development and applications of pH-sensitive DDS as well as recent advances in the field.
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