Nanomedicines for the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) mainly comprises Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis and is considered an idiopathic disease affecting the entire gastrointestinal tract. Various approaches have been proposed for the treatment of IBD, but the development of an appropriate delivery system to specifically target different sites of inflammation in the gut has remained a challenge. The therapeutic approaches available to date are not considered to be completely effective due to severe systemic side effects. Instead, a carrier system that could deliver the drug exclusively to the target site would be desirable. Nanomedicine offers new hope for diagnosis and targeted delivery of drugs. In the context of IBD, nanomedicines can accumulate in inflamed tissue forming a drug depot at the site of action and reducing both dosing frequency and possible adverse effects. In this review, we discuss the advancement in drug delivery provided by nanomedicines compared to classical drug delivery approaches, as well as the application of nanocarriers for biologicals and other next generation anti-inflammatory drugs.