Hydrogel as drug delivery system

Hydrogels are crosslinked polymer networks, have been widely investigated as the carrier for drug delivery systems. These biomaterials have gained attention owing to their peculiar characteristics like swelling in aqueous medium, pH and temperature sensitivity or sensitivity towards other stimuli. Due to their high water content, these gels resemble natural living tissue more than any other type of synthetic biomaterial. Several techniques have been reported for the synthesis of hydrogels like co-polymerization/crosslinking. Hydrogel can be useful in drug delivery, tissue engineering and wound healing applications. Some environmental variables, such pH and elevated temperatures, are found in the body. For this reason, either pH-sensitive and/or temperature sensitive hydrogels can be used for site-specific controlled drug delivery. Hydrogels that are responsive to specific molecules, such as glucose or antigens, can be useful as drug delivery systems.