Chitosan hydrogels for sustained drug delivery

• Published in: Journal of controlled release Vol. 326; pp. 150 - 163
• Main Authors: Peers, S., Montembault, A., Ladavière, C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 10-10-2020; Elsevier
• Subjects: Chemical Sciences; Chitosan; Drug delivery systems; Hydrogels; Polymers; Hydrogels; Drug delivery systems; Chitosan
• ISSN: 0168-3659; 1873-4995
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2020.06.012

Sustainable and controlled delivery of drugs is at the centre of a huge amount of undertaken researches. The ability of hydrogels, high water content materials, to achieve a local and delayed-delivery has already been demonstrated for a wide variety of therapeutic agents and various polymer natures. In particular, chitosan, a natural polymer, stands out as a first choice material for hydrogels elaboration in biomedical, cosmetic, and health related applications, owing to its interesting properties (as biocompatibility, biodegradability, antimicrobial capacity, and mucoadhesivity). Moreover, chitosan also allows drugs to go easier through biological barriers. The main objective of this review is to report the various uses of chitosan hydrogels as drug delivery devices to control and/or delay the release of drugs loaded into their three dimensional matrix. A wide spectrum of corresponding biomedical applications of these systems can be encountered in the literature, whatever the physicochemical nature of drugs (hydrophilic, hydrophobic, macromolecular), as detailed in this review.
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