Current strategies for sustaining drug release from electrospun nanofibers

Abstract

Electrospun drug-eluting fibers are emerging as a novel dosage form for multipurpose prevention against sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and unintended pregnancy. Previous work from our lab and others show the versatility of this platform to deliver large doses of physico-chemically diverse agents. However, there is still an unmet need to develop practical fiber formulations for water-soluble small molecule drugs needed at high dosing due to intrinsic low potency or desire for sustained prevention. To date, most sustained release fibers have been restricted to the delivery of biologics or hydrophobic small molecules at low drug loading of typically < 1 wt.%, which is often impractical for most clinical applications. For hydrophilic small molecule drugs, their high aqueous solubility and poor partitioning and incompatibility with insoluble polymers make long-term release even more challenging. Here we investigate several existing strategies to sustain release of hydrophilic small molecule drugs that are highly-loaded in electrospun fibers. In particular, we investigate what is known about the design constraints required to realize multi-day release from fibers fabricated from uniaxial and coaxial electrospinning.

Recent Advances in the Synthesis of Metal Oxide Nanofibers and Their Environmental Remediation Applications

“…The applicability of porous nanofibers is more comprehensive and broad in contrast with core-shell and hallow nanofibers. Owing to their ultra-high BET surface areas, porous fibers find applications in membranes [90], filtration [91], fuel cells [92], catalysis [93], tissue engineering [94,95], and drug delivery and release [96]. Porous nanofibers can be created with a distinctive topology by choosing precise solvents or a proper mixture of solvents, or polymer mixtures under an optimized environment.…”

Early stage release control of an anticancer drug by drug-polymer miscibility in a hydrophobic fiber-based drug delivery system

“…[2][3][4][5][6] Of the ber-forming processes, electrospinning has been widely adopted as a versatile method to produce brous vehicles with ne-tuned morphology for effective delivery of therapeutic agents. [1][2][3]5,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] For example, multi-axial electrospinning has been utilized to produce multi-compartmental bers that allow multiple release stages or multi-drug delivery. 5,10,18 This conguration has a potential application of treating patients who have developed resistance to specic drugs.…”

“…4,5,16,21,22 For degradable polymers, as their geometry changes during degradation, the release mechanism can be more complex than that of non-degradable drugcarriers. 23 As a model anticancer drug, doxorubicin (Dox) has been studied in many researches 1,24,25 due to its effectiveness for a wide range of cancers, including breast cancer, bladder cancer, lymphocytic leukemia and lymphoma.…”

A Review of Injectable and Implantable Biomaterials for Treatment and Repair of Soft Tissues in Wound Healing

“…All fiber formulations promoted L292 fibroblasts proliferation ( Figure 5(c)), suggesting a good biomaterials to enhance wound healing. With respect to functional ability, not only do electrospun nanofibers have the ability to carry small molecule drugs [79,80], biological active components 8 Journal of Nanotechnology (e.g., growth factors [81], proteins and enzymes [82], and genes [83]), and even cells, but also their surface can be functionalized with signaling molecules to promote cell activities [84]. This makes electrospun nanofibers a multifunctional drug delivery system.…”