Alternative colon targeted drug delivery approaches for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease

The main purpose of any drug delivery system is to supply a therapeutic amount of drug to a target site in a body, so that the necessary drug concentration can be achieved quickly and then maintained. Targeted drug delivery implies discerning and effective localization of drug into the target at therapeutic concentrations with limited admittance to non-target sites. A targeted drug delivery system is favoured in drugs having low solubility, instability, short half-life, large volume of distribution, reduced absorption, low specificity and low therapeutic index. Targeted drug delivery may afford maximum therapeutic activity by preventing degradation or inactivation of drug during transfer to the target site. Occurrence of inflammatory bowel diseases has enlarged at an alarming rate. The treatment and extent of therapy is determined by the sternness of the circumstances. Conventional therapies are insufficient and are connected with several systemic side effects because of lack to localization of active moiety at the irritated site. Colon targeted drug delivery is an vigorous area of research for local diseases affecting the colon, as it improves the competence of therapeutics and enables restricted treatment, which reduces universal toxicity. Targeted delivery of therapeutics to the colon is mainly advantageous for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic autoimmune disease, which includes ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease is considered by chronic relapsing inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. Advances in oral drug delivery plan have considerably enhanced the bioavailability of drugs to the colon; though in order for a drug to have therapeutic efficiency during disease, considerations have to be made for the altered physiology of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract that is connected with GI inflammation. The current review discusses the novel and the latest planned approaches of colonic drug targeting exclusively concentrating the drug at inflamed site and thereby achieving successful treatment routine.