Drug Delivery Systems That Eradicate and/or Prevent Biofilm Formation - Antibiofilm Agents: From Diagnosis to Treatment and Prevention - page 397

Fig. 1 Size ranges of various drug delivery systems

is tremendous. The concept of the 'magic bullet' proposed a century ago by Nobel
laureate Paul Ehrlich came to reality with the recent appearance of several approved
forms of drug-targeting systems for the treatment of certain cancers and serious
infectious diseases.
The lack of newer antibiotics and the emergence of multiple drug resistant to the
conventional antibiotics have shifted research to the optimization of existing drugs.
A wide range of materials, such as natural or synthetic polymers, lipids, surfactants,
and dendrimers (Fig. 1 ), have been employed as drug carriers which significantly
affect the pharmokinetics and phamacodynamics of the drug (Duncan 2003 , 2006 ;
Sampathkumar and Yarema 2005 ; Torchilin 2008 ). Therapeutic and preventive
strategies, in order to be successful, depend not only on the appropriate choice of
the active principle but also to a large extent on the use of an appropriate delivery
system. This holds true for difficult to deliver compounds; in particular drugs that
have poor solubility (hydrophobic) and poor permeability. In fact, the quest to find
the ideal therapeutic strategy will continue until a drug with maximum efficacy and
no side effects is found.
Many present day drugs are plagued by narrow therapeutic windows and toxic-
ity. These bottlenecks can be circumvented, and the therapeutic effectiveness of
existing drugs can be improved, through the use of an appropriately designed
delivery system, which can modify the distribution of the drug in the body by
targeting it to desired site and by controlling its release. These ideas are being
realized through the use of nanotechnology to develop nanoparticulate delivery
systems for drug and antigen delivery. For example, these drug delivery systems
could diffuse into the mucus environment surrounding a biofilm where local and
controlled release of the antibiofilm ingredient increases its efficacy (Meers

et al. 2008 ; Suk et al. 2009 ; Tang et al. 2009 ).