Abstract

The biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles (NP) are promising for direct delivery of drugs to the lungs for sustained/controlled drug release and produced the desired therapeutic actions against various diseases. The physicochemical properties (size, shape, and surface chemistry) of NPs ensures the particles ability to preferentially accumulate into the lung cells confirming the access of the administered drugs to the target cells. Owing to the limited clearance of drugs or metabolites from the lungs, the delivery of drugs in a controlled release fashion is very challenging. The application of various drug loaded-polymeric colloidal NPs for the management of different diseases such as asthma, COPD, CF, lung cancers, pneumonia etc. is challenging; however, a large number of nanoparticulate colloidal drugs such as anti-asthmatic, anti-bacterials, anti-cancer, proteins and peptides have been successfully investigated for lung delivery. In this chapter, the recent advances on the development of drug-loaded respirable polymeric colloidal nanoparticles with controlled drug release for the treatment of various lung diseases have been demonstrated.