review · Pharmaceutics
Standard medicines for tuberculosis suffer from poor bioavailability, which obliges patients to undergo lengthy treatment regimens with frequent dosing. These conventional regimens frequently provoke severe side effects and interact negatively with therapies for comorbid conditions such as HIV. Consequently, poor patient adherence fosters the spread of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis strains. Modern targeted delivery mechanisms offer a way to overcome these treatment hurdles. Lipid-based nanocarriers, including liposomes, niosomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, nanostructured lipid carriers, microemulsions, nanoemulsions, and self-emulsifying formulations, enhance the solubility and bioavailability of anti-tuberculosis drugs. By directing therapeutic compounds specifically to sites of infection and facilitating sustained drug release, these carrier platforms lower overall toxicity and reduce adverse reactions. Data across these varied lipid systems demonstrate clear potential to refine tuberculosis therapy, highlighting the need for translational development.
Tuberculosis remains difficult to treat effectively because existing medications require lengthy courses and cause unpleasant side effects, prompting patients to discontinue therapy and triggering drug resistance. Formulating these medicines within lipid carriers can transport them directly to infection sites, making regimens easier to tolerate, improving patient adherence, and helping to curb the emergence of multidrug-resistant strains.
These lipid-based technologies could enable pharmaceutical manufacturers to reformulate tuberculosis treatments into more targeted, better-tolerated products. The abstract indicates that the technology spans multiple carrier platforms, such as liposomes and self-emulsifying systems, but remains at a research and translational development stage rather than near-market deployment.
AI-generated from the published abstract. Always read the original work before citing.
The antimicrobial drugs currently used for the management of tuberculosis (TB) exhibit poor bioavailability that necessitates prolonged treatment regimens and high dosing frequency to achieve optimal therapeutic outcomes. In addition, these agents cause severe adverse effects, as well as having detrimental interactions with other drugs used in the treatment of comorbid conditions such as HIV/AIDS. The challenges associated with the current TB regimens contribute to low levels of patient adherence and, consequently, the development of multidrug-resistant TB strains. This has led to the urgent need to develop newer drug delivery systems to improve the treatment of TB. Targeted drug delivery systems provide higher drug concentrations at the infection site, thus leading to reduced incidences of adverse effects. Lipid-based nanocarriers have proven to be effective in improving the solubility and bioavailability of antimicrobials whilst decreasing the incidence of adverse effects through targeted delivery. The potential application of lipid-based carriers such as liposomes, niosomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, nanostructured lipid carriers, nano and microemulsions, and self-emulsifying drug delivery systems for the treatment of TB is reviewed herein. The composition of the investigated lipid-based carriers, their characteristics, and their influence on bioavailability, toxicity, and sustained drug delivery are also discussed. Overall, lipid-based systems have shown great promise in anti-TB drug delivery applications. The summary of the reviewed data encourages future efforts to boost the translational development of lipid-based nanocarriers to improve TB therapy.
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DOI: 10.3390/pharmaceutics13122041
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