Treatment of Crohn’s disease

PubMed, the Internet portal of biomedical and life sciences literature, indexed an interesting article, entitled “A new method for targeted drug delivery using polymeric microcapsules: implications for treatment of Crohn’s disease (Cell Biochem Biophys. 2005;43(1):77-85). Authors are Мetz T, Jones ML, Chen H et al. from the Biomedical Technology and Cell Therapy Research Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Physiology, Artificial Cells & Organs Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Recent research and clinical evidence suggest that thalidomide could potentially be used to treat inflammation associated with Crohn’s disease. Treatment with thalidomide would prove more efficacious if the drug could be delivered directly to target areas in the gut. Microcapsule encapsulation could enable direct delivery of the drug. The authors designed and tested drug-targeting release characteristics of alginate-poly-L-lysine-alginate (APA) microcapsules in simulated gastrointestinal environments. The results show that APA capsules enabled delivery of thalidomide in the middle and distal portions of the small intestine. They also compared the APA membrane formulation with an earlier designed alginate chitosan (AC) membrane thalidomide formulation. The results show that both APA and AC capsules allow for successful delivery of thalidomide in the gut and could prove beneficial in the treatment of Crohn’s disease. However, further research is required. To access the full abstract of the article, click here.