Nano-Based Therapies for Acute and Chronic Lung Diseases

Abstract

Nanotechnology in medicine—known as nanomedicine—has opened a new era for accurate and precise diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary inflammatory diseases. This novel approach has developed into a broad range of preclinical and clinical applications. Nanoparticles can be designed and employed as drug delivery systems to defeat the limitations of current medical treatments and cross biological barriers, such as mucosa, microenvironmental, and cellular levels. Nano-drug delivery systems are able to improve drug stability, enhance drug solubility, minimize drug first-pass metabolism, and facilitation of controlled release of payload. The applications of nanotechnology in pulmonary inflammatory diseases provide numerous benefits compared to the traditional way of therapeutic agent administration. This novel strategy can be engineered for targeting specific site to deliver therapeutic agents to the desired tissues and cells in a more effective manner including higher level of bioavailability, less toxic side effects, and drug dose reduction. Another attractive application of nanotechnology in the diagnosis of pulmonary inflammatory diseases is nano-based sensors, known as nano-biosensors, which are extensively used for the molecular detection of biomarkers associated with the diagnosis and detection of pulmonary diseases. The surface area to volume ratio which is a unique feature of nanomaterials provides higher sensitivity and shorter response times compared to traditional method for detection. Nano-biosensors, also, offer attractive features such as specificity, ease of diagnostic procedures, and multiplexed measurement ability with high diagnostic accuracy ensuring accuracy of outcomes in high-throughput experiments. Therefore, it has been used for the early pulmonary inflammatory diseases’ diagnosis even before symptoms’ presentation. Unique properties of nanomaterials may help overcome traditional and current challenges for the treatment of lung inflammatory diseases.