ABSTRACT:Mucoadhesive microspheres are one of the most promising novel techniques for drug delivery. Mucoadhesive systems offer a sustained drug release method, thus enhancing drug absorption in a site-specific manner. Microspheres have very small sizes and provide efficient carrier capacities. Mucoadhesive systems therefore play a vital role in drug delivery systems. Mucoadhesion is a two-step procedure, and its mechanism can be explained by combining theories of wetting, mechanical interlocking, electronic transfer, adsorption, fracture, and diffusion interpenetration, as deemed suitable. Mucoadhesive microspheres offer added advantages of reliability, safety, specificity, prolonged action, delayed release, and enhanced activity along with a very few disadvantages. These systems can be prepared by emulsion cross-linking, single emulsion, ionotropic gelation, phase inversion, spray drying, solvent removal, and hot melt methods. The resulting microspheres are characterized using a number of parameters such as size, surface, efficiencies, and release studies. Mucoadhesive microspheres have been developed for oral, buccal, nasal, ocular, rectal, and vaginal applications with systemic as well as local effects. They give a chance to deliver the drugs which were not possible to administer by oral route. This review article gives an overview of mucoadhesive microspheres, their pros and cons, preparation methods, characterization, application, and recent developments. C 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Adv Polym Technol 2015, 0, 21550; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com.
Hydrogels are water-swollen networks, which are cross-linked structures consisting of hydrophilic polymers. They are made three-dimensional by the creation of the cross-links by joining them through covalent or ionic bonds. Hydrogels have been used in various areas including industry and medicine due to their excellent characteristics such as high swelling capacity, high content of water, compatibility with other biological molecules, controlled chemical and physical properties, high mechanical integrity and biodegradability. They have been the center of attention of researchers from the past 50 years because of their promising applications in industries and other areas. They are used in different fields, in medicine, in the diagnosis of the diseases, in culturing of cells, in injuries as wound healers, in cosmetics, in skin diseases like pruritis, in environmental pollution reduction and other miscellaneous applications such as in diapers for babies and sanitary products. Extensive literature can be found on the subject of hydrogels. The present review discusses the history, description of hydrogels, basic properties, classification, different techniques or methods of hydrogel synthesis and the areas in which hydrogels find applications.
This paper examines how the introduction of novel medical practices in third-world countries is complicit with the pharmaceutical politics of the First World, as projects of medical welfare have been used by the First World to generate capital by establishing pharmaceutical companies in the Third World. This study draws on Deepika Bahri’s concept of ‘postcolonial biology’ and Frantz Fanon’s critique of the nexus of capitalism, colonialism and the ruthless medical practices carried out by the First World in the Third World. This paper presents an analysis of John le Carre’s The Constant Gardener and Sonia Shah’s The Body Hunters: Testing New Drugs on the Poorest Patients to uncover the patterns through which Western pharmaceutical companies dehumanise native Africans by testing lethal vaccines on them without their consent. Through the analysis of these texts, we propose that the First World is guilty of ‘biological neo-colonialism’ as these countries experiment lethal drugs on the people of the Third World, which cause permanent deformities in these individuals. At the same time, the bureaucrats and governments of these third-world countries do not hesitate to assist such ventures, and they lure the needy by offering them medication at low cost that have direct horrible health consequences. Such medical practices create suspicion among the natives regarding Western medicine, and when they reject using it, they are labelled as backward people.Keywords: Biological colonisation, biological neo-colonialism, exploitative capitalism, pharmaceutical politics, Third World exploitation.
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