Chitosan-Based Interpenetrating Polymer Networks: Drug Delivery Application

Abstract

Multicomponent drug delivery systems have found several potential diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Among these the interpenetrating polymeric network (IPN) has gained great attention in the last decades, which involves a blend of two or more polymers in a network with at least one of the systems synthesized in the presence of the other. The development of IPN is attractive because they provide free volume space for the easy encapsulation of drugs in the three-dimensional network structure which are obtained by the cross-linking of two or more polymer networks. This review focuses on the IPNs based on chitosan for drug delivery and biomedical applications. Chitosan is a natural, biodegradable, nontoxic, mucoadhesive, and biocompatible polymer, which has found diverse pharmaceutical applications. Chitosan-based IPNs have garnered immense attention as a vehicle for oral drug delivery. This review summarizes IPNs based on chitosan and other polysaccharides and also IPNs based on chitosan and different synthetic polymers. The influence of the second network on the stimuli responsiveness of the “smart” chitosan-based IPNs is also discussed based on the most recent publications in the field.