Mesoporous Silica Particles as Drug Delivery Systems—The State of the Art in Loading Methods and the Recent Progress in Analytical Techniques for Monitoring These Processes

Abstract

Conventional administration of drugs is limited by poor water solubility, low permeability, and mediocre targeting. Safe and effective delivery of drugs and therapeutic agents remains a challenge, especially for complex therapies, such as cancer treatment, pain management, heart failure medication, among several others. Thus, delivery systems designed to improve the pharmacokinetics of loaded molecules, and allowing controlled release and target specific delivery, have received considerable attention in recent years. The last two decades have seen a growing interest among scientists and the pharmaceutical industry in mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) as drug delivery systems (DDS). This interest is due to the unique physicochemical properties, including high loading capacity, excellent biocompatibility, and easy functionalization. In this review, we discuss the current state of the art related to the preparation of drug-loaded MSNs and their analysis, focusing on the newest advancements, and highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of different methods. Finally, we provide a concise outlook for the remaining challenges in the field.

Adsorption Features of Various Inorganic Materials for the Drug Removal from Water and Synthetic Urine Medium: A Multi-Technique Time-Resolved In Situ Investigation

“…However, once the pores are completely filled, solidification of Ibu-Na was initiated. The presence of such distinct molecular ensembles subjected to intrinsically diverse local molecular environments and exhibiting different dynamical behavior was reported in organic molecules embedded in MCM-41 [ 45 , 46 ]. This hypothesis is further supported by the behavior of water molecules, which exhibited diverse chemical environments within the MCM-41.…”

Optimization of mirtazapine loaded into mesoporous silica nanostructures via Box-Behnken design: in-vitro characterization and in-vivo assessment

“…To load the drug effectively into the pore of MSNs, the pore size usually need to be larger than the drug molecule dimensions (Trzeciak et al., 2021 ). Mirtazapine was efficiently loaded into SBA-15, MCM-41, and Aluminite-MCM-41, as they have a suitable pore size of 3.28 nm, 1.69 nm, and 1.68 nm respectively, which are larger than the size of the drug molecule.…”

“…The MRT was loaded into MSNs by Incipient wetness method, solvent evaporation method, and solvent impregnation method using the ethanol as a loading solvent, due to the high solubility of MRT in ethanol, allowing the drug molecules to enter the pore structure efficiently and uniformly in an appropriate time (Lehto & Riikonen, 2014). After drug loading, the solvent has been removed to the acceptable levels specified in the guidelines of the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) Q3 (R5) to confirm the removal of all traces of organic solvent (Trzeciak et al., 2021 ). The loading efficiency for all formulas was in the range of 85.55% (F1) to 107.95% (F8) ( Table 2 ).…”

Drug loading ability and release study of various size small mesoporous silica nanoparticle as drug carrier

“…Some drugs have been successfully loaded into MSN such as doxorubicin, methotrexate, mitoxantrone, quercetin, curcumin, and metallodrug [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. The drug loading process is influenced by MSN morphology, such as particle size and surface area [23,24]. In this study, we have investigated the influence of particle size of MSN, which affect surface area as well, toward drug loading ability used quercetin as the drug model.…”