The 11th edition of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine welcomes Anthony Fauci to its editorial staff, in addition to more than 85 new contributors. While the organization of the book is similar to previous editions, major emphasis has been placed on disorders that affect multiple organ systems. Important advances in genetics, immunology, and oncology are emphasized. Many chapters of the book have been rewritten and describe major advances in internal medicine. Subjects that received only a paragraph or two of attention in previous editions are now covered in entire chapters. Among the chapters that have been extensively revised are the chapters on infections in the compromised host, on skin rashes in infections, on many of the viral infections, including cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus, on sexually transmitted diseases, on diabetes mellitus, on disorders of bone and mineral metabolism, and on lymphadenopathy and splenomegaly. The major revisions in these chapters and many

Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine

Biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles based drug delivery systems

PLGA-based nanoparticles: An overview of biomedical applications

A surprisingly large proportion of new drug candidates emerging from drug discovery programmes are water insoluble, and therefore poorly bioavailable, leading to abandoned development efforts. These so-called 'brickdust' candidates can now be rescued by formulating them into crystalline nanosuspensions. In the process of overcoming issues involving solubility, additional pharmacokinetic benefits of the drugs so formulated have come to be appreciated. As such, insolubility issues of the past have provoked a paradigm change, which now offers novel solutions for innovative drugs of the future.

Nanosuspensions in drug delivery

Current medical imaging technologies allow visualization of tissue anatomy in the human body at resolutions ranging from 100 micrometers to 1 millimeter. These technologies are generally not sensitive enough to detect early-stage tissue abnormalities associated with diseases such as cancer and atherosclerosis, which require micrometer-scale resolution. Here, optical coherence tomography was adapted to allow high-speed visualization of tissue in a living animal with a catheter-endoscope 1 millimeter in diameter. This method, referred to as "optical biopsy," was used to obtain cross-sectional images of the rabbit gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts at 10-micrometer resolution.

In Vivo Endoscopic Optical Biopsy with Optical Coherence Tomography

Nanosuspensions have emerged as a promising strategy for the efficient delivery of hydrophobic drugs because of their versatile features and unique advantages. Techniques such as media milling and high-pressure homogenization have been used commercially for producing nanosuspensions. Recently, the engineering of nanosuspensions employing emulsions and microemulsions as templates has been addressed in the literature. The unique features of nanosuspensions have enabled their use in various dosage forms, including specialized delivery systems such as mucoadhesive hydrogels. Rapid strides have been made in the delivery of nanosuspensions by parenteral, peroral, ocular and pulmonary routes. Currently, efforts are being directed to extending their applications in site-specific drug delivery.

http://depa.fquim.unam.mx/amyd/archivero/Nanosuspensiones_5211.pdf

Nanosuspensions: a promising drug delivery strategy.

Chemotherapy, a major strategy for cancer treatment, lacks the specificity to localize the cancer therapeutics in the tumor site, thereby affecting normal healthy tissues and advocating toxic adverse effects. Nanotechnological intervention has greatly revolutionized the therapy of cancer by surmounting the current limitations in conventional chemotherapy, which include undesirable biodistribution, cancer cell drug resistance, and severe systemic side effects. Nanoparticles (NPs) achieve preferential accumulation in the tumor site by virtue of their passive and ligand-based targeting mechanisms. Polymer-based nanomedicine, an arena that entails the use of polymeric NPs, polymer micelles, dendrimers, polymersomes, polyplexes, polymer-lipid hybrid systems, and polymer-drug/protein conjugates for improvement in efficacy of cancer therapeutics, has been widely explored. The broad scope for chemically modifying the polymer into desired construct makes it a versatile delivery system. Several polymer-based therapeutic NPs have been approved for clinical use. This review provides an insight into the advances in polymer-based targeted nanocarriers with focus on therapeutic aspects in the field of oncology.

https://www.dovepress.com/getfile.php?fileID=23531

Polymeric nanoparticles for targeted treatment in oncology: current insights

Aging of skin is an intricate biological process consisting of two types. While intrinsic or chronological aging is an inevitable process, photoaging involves the premature aging of skin occurring due to cumulative exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Chronological and photoaging both have clinically differentiable manifestations. Various natural and synthetic retinoids have been explored for the treatment of aging and many of them have shown histological and clinical improvement, but most of the studies have been carried out in patients presenting with photoaged skin. Amongst the retinoids, tretinoin possibly is the most potent and certainly the most widely investigated retinoid for photoaging therapy. Although retinoids show promise in the treatment of skin aging, irritant reactions such as burning, scaling or dermatitis associated with retinoid therapy limit their acceptance by patients. This problem is more prominent with tretinoin and tazarotene whereas other retinoids mainly represented by retinaldehyde and retinol are considerably less irritating. In order to minimize these side effects, various novel drug delivery systems have been developed. In particular, nanoparticles have shown a good potential in improving the stability, tolerability and efficacy ofretinoids like tretinoin and retinol. However, more elaborate clinical studies are required to confirm their advantage in the delivery of topical retinoids.

Vandana B. Patravale

Papers

Nanosuspensions: a promising drug delivery strategy.

Polymeric nanoparticles for targeted treatment in oncology: current insights

Retinoids in the treatment of skin aging: an overview of clinical efficacy and safety.

Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) of tretinoin: potential in topical delivery.

Parasitic diseases: Liposomes and polymeric nanoparticles versus lipid nanoparticles.