Recent Progress in Implantable Drug Delivery Systems

In recent years, tremendous effort is devoted to developing platforms, such as implantable drug delivery systems (IDDSs), with temporally and spatially controlled drug release capabilities and improved adherence. IDDSs have multiple advantages: i) the timing and location of drug delivery can be controlled by patients using specific stimuli (light, sound, electricity, magnetism, etc.). Some intelligent "closed-loop" IDDS can even realize self-management without human participation. ii) IDDSs enable continuous and stable delivery of drugs over a long period (months to years) and iii) to administer drugs directly to the lesion, thereby helping reduce dosage and side effects. iv) IDDSs enable personalized drug delivery according to patient needs. The high demand for such systems has prompted scientists to make efforts to develop intelligent IDDS. In this review, several common stimulus-responsive mechanisms including endogenous (e.g., pH, reactive oxygen species, proteins, etc.) and exogenous stimuli (e.g., light, sound, electricity, magnetism, etc.), are given in detail. Besides, several types of IDDS reported in recent years are reviewed, including various stimulus-responsive systems based on the above mechanisms, radio frequency-controlled IDDS, "closed-loop" IDDS, self-powered IDDS, etc. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of various IDDS, bottleneck problems, and possible solutions are analyzed to provide directions for subsequent research.