Green Surface Active Ionic Liquid-based Drug Delivery Systems
Convincing epidemiological and experimental evidence has established that dietary phytochemicals like curcumin (turmeric), genistein (soybean), resveratrol (grapes), capsaicin (red chili), quercetin (apples and other fruit), diallyl sulfide (garlic), lycopene (tomato, watermelon), etc. act as chemoprevention agents and reduce, slow, or impede the risk of different cancers. Though several advantages such as relative non-toxicity, sustainable accessibility, cost-effectiveness, and usage as oral forms, could be associated with these natural chemoprevention agents, many of them have shown limited therapeutic efficiency in pre-clinical and clinical studies, attributed mainly to their low bioavailability due to aqueous insolubility and rapid metabolism. This results in sub-therapeutic concentrations at the target site. To circumvent the bioavailability issues of sparingly soluble drugs, advanced drug delivery techniques such as nanoparticles, liposomes, microparticles, and implants have been designed to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of the chemopreventives through increased bioavailability and targetability. However, each of these systems has its own drawbacks and limitations. Therefore, it remains a challenge to develop a universal drug carrier system for sparingly soluble drugs in general and chemopreventives specifically.