Chapter 18 - Nanospun membranes developed by electrospinning techniques for drug delivery applications

Abstract

Electrospinning has emerged as a versatile and straightforward method for the development of polymeric nanofibers. The electrospun nanofibers with unique features allow extensive biomedical applications in tissue engineering, wound healing, and drug-delivery systems. The high surface-area-to-volume ratio of electrospun fibers enhances cell attachment, drug loading, and mass transfer properties. Thus, nanofiber-based drug-delivery systems are widely applicable for a specific release of drugs for a wide range of drug-release kinetics, and therefore they are considered the most promising drug-delivery systems. Drugs ranging from antibiotics and anticancer agents to proteins, DNA, RNA, living cells, and various growth factors have been incorporated into electrospun fibers. The drug-loaded electrospun nanofibers have been used in implants, oral, mucosal, dermal, and transdermal systems including wound dressings. These fibers show great promise for use in drug delivery provided that one can confidently control the processing variables during its fabrication. This chapter presents an overview of the electrospinning process, drug-loading and drug-release mechanisms from electrospun nanofibers; different drug-delivery systems and reported drugs loaded into polymeric nanofibers to be employed as drug-delivery systems. While concluding, the emphasis was also given to describing the current challenges and future perspectives of the electrospun membranes for drug delivery.