About Author: Parikh Ankitkumar Yogeshbhai*, Joshi Pratikkumar Rajendrakumar, Upadhyay Shivam Umeshbhai
*Department of Pharmaceutics,
A. R. college of Pharmacy,
V. V. Nagar, Anand, Gujarat, India.
Reference ID: PHARMATUTOR-ART-1073
Abstract
The urinary bladder is primarily a short-term storage organ for urine. The epithelial layer of the urinary bladder, the urothelium, serves as the primary barrier to the toxic substances diffusing from the urine into the blood. The barrier function is due to the epithelial surface of the urinary bladder, the urothelium, which has characteristic umbrella cells, joined by tight junctions and covered by impenetrable plaques, as well as an anti-adherent mucin layer. Diseases of the urinary bladder, such as bladder carcinomas and interstitial cystitis, cause acute damage to the bladder wall. They cannot be effectively treated by systemic administration of drugs because permeability of the urothelial layer is very low and instilled drug solutions become diluted with urine and get washed out of the bladder during voiding, necessitating repeated infusions of the drug. In order to improve the efficacy of drug carrier systems for drug delivery purposes, nano-sized particles such as liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, gelatin protein nanoparticles, dendrimers, etc., can be used to increase the contact between the encapsulated drug and the damaged site, as well as chemically interact with the urothelium to enhance permeability through it. Magnetic targeting using external magnetic fields shows promising results in terms of non-invasive targeting of specific regions in the bladder. Mucoadhesive biomaterials as drug carriers can adhere efficiently to the mucous membrane of the urothelium, increases the residence time of the drug in the bladder and allows sustained drug delivery over a prolonged time span. Hydrogels, such as the thermo-responsive polymeric PEG-PLGA-PEG system, which forms an in situ polymeric gel layer that stays strongly adhered to the bladder wall. Gene therapy using viral and non-viral vectors has advantages over conventional methods in terms of much more specific targeting of tumor cells. Novel targeted drug delivery systems with much higher specificities to the target cells can provide great breakthrough in bladder diseases, especially bladder cancers which are difficult to treat currently and having high mortality rates.
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