Site specific targeting of microparticles to the inflamed colonic mucosa: a novel approach to the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease

摘要

Nowadays, the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, e.g. ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, is to provide the patient daily anti-inflammatory drugs. Beside the usual drugs there are new approaches by the use of protein drugs (1). These new protein drugs are applied by rectal route, which has a low compliance or simply a low efficiency, in the case of Crohn's disease, where the inflamed tissue is located in the upper parts of the colon. However, an oral administration appears to be difficult due to denaturation and degradation of the protein before reaching the colon. A very promising approach seems to be microparticles as an oral drug delivery system, since they can be designed to protect the incorporated protein from degradation and control the release after application. Usually applied formulations, e.g. tablets or pellets, are eliminated very fast due to the diarrhoe and therefore their efficiencies are limited. The purpose of using microparticles was their possible increased deposition in the inflamed tissue due to their small size.