[Bioadhesives: rationale, state of the art and therapeutic potential]

Pharmaceutical research is going on the way to formulate drugs in dosage forms and delivery systems able to improve their biopharmaceutical properties. For some routes of administration, among them the transmucosal ones, such improvements may be reached by increasing the time and the nature of the contact between mucosal tissues and drug dosage forms via chemical or physical bioadhesive links. Biopharmaceutical AFI Study Group efforts were oriented in analyzing the actual state of the art in the field of bioadhesive drug delivery. Rationals of use of drug dosage forms with bioadhesive properties, analytical method of control of bioadhesion (both in vitro and in vivo) and therapeutical potentialities are the matter of this review.