The use of hydrogels in oral drug delivery

Abstract

Hydrogels in Drug Delivery: Advances in the Manufacture, Characterization, and Application of Hydrogels to Address Current Global Healthcare Challenges presents the latest advances in hydrogels, ranging from their basic chemistry to specific application of existing and novel hydrogels in controlled drug delivery and biomedicine. Hydrogels have been increasingly used in the development of novel formulations in a wide variety of therapeutic and monitoring applications. Multidisciplinary work carried out by researchers working in synthetic chemistry, drug delivery, biomedicine and other fields has led to the development of novel polymers, enabling the preparation of hydrogels with adjustable physicochemical properties. Accordingly, these materials offer multiple advantages over other drug delivery systems, including an increased patient compliance by reducing the required number of medication doses, reducing the healing time in injuries, and simplifying patient monitoring by reducing the invasiveness of current methods.