Barriers that Inhaled Particles Encounter

Inhalable particulate drug carriers-nano- and micro-particles, liposomes, and micelles-should be designed to promote drug deposition in the lung and engineered to exhibit the desired drug release property. To deposit at the desired site of action, inhaled particles must evade various lines of lung defense, including mucociliary clearance, entrapment by mucus layer, and phagocytosis by alveolar macrophages. Various physiological, mechanical, and chemical barriers of the respiratory system reduce particle residence time in the lungs, prevent particle deposition in the deep lung, remove drug-filled particles from the lung, and thus diminish the therapeutic efficacy of inhaled drugs. To develop inhalable drug carriers with efficient deposition properties and optimal retention in the lungs, particle engineers should have a thorough understanding of the barriers that particles confront and appreciate the lung defenses that remove the particles from the respiratory system. Thus, this section summarizes the mechanical, chemical, and immunological barriers of the lungs that inhaled particles must overcome and discusses the influence of these barriers on the fate of inhaled particles.