No abstract

Controlled drug delivery is a matter of interest to numerous scientists from various domains, as well as an essential issue for society as a whole. In the treatment of many diseases, it is crucial to control the dosing of a drug for a long time and thus maintain its optimal concentration in the tissue. Heart diseases are particularly important in this aspect. One such disease is an obstructive arterial disease affecting millions of people around the world. In recent years, stents and balloon catheters have reached a significant position in the treatment of this condition. Balloon catheters are also successfully used to manage tear ducts, paranasal sinuses, or salivary glands disorders. Modern technology is continually striving to improve the results of previous generations of stents and balloon catheters by refining their design, structure, and constituent materials. These advances result in the development of both successive models of drug-eluting stents (DES) and drug-eluting balloons (DEB). This paper presents milestones in the development of DES and DEB, which are a significant option in the treatment of coronary artery diseases. This report reviews the works related to achievements in construction designs and materials, as well as preparation technologies, of DES and DEB. Special attention was paid to the polymeric biodegradable materials used in the production of the above-mentioned devices. Information was also collected on the various methods of producing drug release coatings and their effectiveness in releasing the active substance.

This review describes the role of contact lenses as an innovative drug delivery system in treating eye diseases. Current ophthalmic drug delivery systems are inadequate, particularly eye drops, which allow about 95% of the active substance to be lost through tear drainage. According to the literature, many interdisciplinary studies have been carried out on the ability of contact lenses to increase the penetration of topical therapeutic agents. Contact lenses limit drug loss by releasing the medicine into two layers of tears on either side of the contact lens, eventually extending the time of contact with the ocular surface. Thanks to weighted soft contact lenses, a continuous release of the drug over an extended period is possible. This article reviewed the various techniques to deliver medications through contact lenses, examining their advantages and disadvantages. In addition, the potential of drug delivery systems based on contact lenses has been extensively studied.

Summary. Stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) is an extraction technique for enrichment of organic compounds from aqueous and gaseous matrices. This technique is based on sorptive extraction, whereby the solutes are extracted into a polymer coating on magnetic stirring rod. SBSE has been used in various types of analytical procedures and wide variety of matrices. However, a limitation of SBSE lies in the fact that only polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-coating material is commercially available and that PDMS predominantly extracts non-polar compounds with K o/w higher than 10. In this survey, a review on non-PDMS stir bar sorptive extraction coatings and their applications to the analysis of environmental, food, and biomedical samples is given.

No abstract