Abstract
Nanomaterials provide enormous opportunities to overcome the limitations of conventional ocular delivery systems, such as low therapeutic efficacy, side effects due to the systemic exposure, or invasive surgery. Apart from the more common ocular disorders, there are some genetic diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, that develop ocular disorders as secondary effects as long as the disease progresses. These patients are more difficult to be pharmacologically treated using conventional drug routes (topically, systemic), since specific pharmacological formulations can be incompatible, display increased toxicity, or their therapeutic efficacy decreases with the administration of different kind of chemical molecules. Magnetic nanoparticles can be used as potent drug carriers and magnetic hyperthermia agents due to their response to an external magnetic field. Drugs can be concentrated in the target point, limiting the damage to other tissues. The other advantage of these magnetic nanoparticles is that they can act as magnetic resonance imaging agents, allowing the detection of the exact location of the disease. However, there are some drawbacks related to their use in drug delivery, such as the limitation to maintain efficacy in the target organ once the magnetic field is removed from outside. Another disadvantage is the difficulty in maintaining the therapeutic action in three dimensions inside the human body. This review summarizes all the application possibilities related to magnetic nanoparticles in ocular diseases.
Highlights
IntroductionPublisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
The anatomy of the human eye can be divided in two main sections: the anterior segment of the eye, which is formed by the cornea, conjunctiva, aqueous humor, iris, ciliary body, and lens, and the posterior segment of the eye, which mainly consists of the vitreous humor, retina, choroid, and optic nerve
Another clinical study carried out by Seliger et al demonstrated that 91.1% of Cystic fibrosis (CF) patients were diagnosed with cataract disease [18], which is in line with another clinical study conducted in the US evaluating the risk of cataracts of pediatric patients with cystic fibrosis [19]
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Magnetic nanoparticles are a kind of nanoparticle that when in the presence of an external magnetic field, their magnetic spins tend to align in the same direction of the field, resulting in an induced magnetization that allows their use in the magnetic resonance imaging diagnosis technique [24] They can act as hyperthermia agents (cancer therapy) [25], can increase the release rate of different drugs (magnetically triggered drug release) [26,27], and are able to facilitate the accumulation in certain tumor areas due to their magnetofection (target therapy) [28]. This review is focused in the applications of nanoparticles that possess magnetic properties, highlighting their advantages as therapeutic ocular agents and their limitations
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