Delivery Systems for Lymphatic Targeting

Singh, Indu; Swami, Rajan; Khan, Wahid; Sistla, Ramakrishna

The lymphatic system has a critical role in the immune system’s recognition and response to disease, and it is an additional circulatory system throughout the entire body. Most solid cancers primarily spread from the main site via the tumour’s surrounding lymphatics before haematological dissemination. Targeting drugs to lymphatic system is quite complicated because of its intricate physiology. Therefore, it tends to be an important target for developing novel therapeutics. Currently, nanocarriers have encouraged the lymphatic targeting, but still there are challenges of locating drugs and bioactives to specific sites, maintaining desired action and crossing all the physiological barriers. Lymphatic therapy using drug-encapsulated colloidal carriers especially liposomes and solid lipid nanoparticles emerges as a new technology to provide better penetration into the lymphatics where residual disease exists. Optimising the proper procedure, selecting the proper delivery route and target area and making use of surface engineering tool, better carrier for lymphotropic system can be achieved. Thus, new methods of delivering drugs and other carriers to lymph nodes are currently under investigation.