Abstract
Osteoporosis is by far the most frequent metabolic disease affecting bone. Current clinical therapeutic treatments are not able to offer long-term solutions. Most of the clinically used anti-osteoporotic drugs are administered systemically, which might lead to side effects in non-skeletal tissues. Therefore, to solve these disadvantages, researchers have turned to nanotechnologies and nanomaterials to create innovative and alternative treatments. One of the innovative approaches to enhance osteoporosis therapy and prevent potential adverse effects is the development of bone-targeting drug delivery technologies. It minimizes the systemic toxicity and also improves the pharmacokinetic profile and therapeutic efficacy of chemical drugs. This paper reviews the current available bone targeting drug delivery systems, focusing on nanoparticles, proposed for osteoporosis treatment. Bone targeting delivery systems is still in its infancy, thus, challenges are ahead of us, including the stability and the toxicity issues. Newly developed biomaterials and technologies with potential for safer and more effective drug delivery, require multidisciplinary collaboration between scientists from many different areas, such as chemistry, biology, engineering, medicine, etc, in order to facilitate their clinical applications.
Highlights
Osteoporosis is a progressive skeletal disease characterized by reduced bone mass and microarchitectural deterioration of bone tissue, with a consequent increase in bone fragility and susceptibility to fracture
The treatment options of osteoporosis are limited to anti-resorptive drugs, that slow down the excess of bone resorption; and anabolic agents, that effectively increase the bone mass that has previously disappeared as a consequence of resorption excess [5]
Recombinant human parathyroid hormone [21] and estrogens [22] are anabolic agents for bone formation that have demonstrated their efficacy in osteoporosis [5,22,23]. rPTH by daily administration has proven to be more efficient than BP therapy by increasing bone mass
Summary
Osteoporosis is a progressive skeletal disease characterized by reduced bone mass and microarchitectural deterioration of bone tissue, with a consequent increase in bone fragility and susceptibility to fracture. Bone is remodeled by a coordinated process in which bone resorbing osteoclasts remove old bone, and boneforming osteoblasts synthesize and mineralize new bone matrix [2]. Disturbances in this physiological process lead to a decreased bone mass, namely, osteoporosis. The current treatments for osteoporosis have notable restrictions, including adequacy and long-term safety issues [3]. It does not exist yet a satisfactory solution to the problem of bone weakening due to osteoporosis [4]. In the European Union, the economic burden of incidents and prior fragility fractures mainly due to osteoporosis was estimated at €29 billion in the five largest EU countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK) and €38,7 billion in the 27 EU countries [9]
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