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Emulsion Gel: a Dual Drug Delivery Platform for Osteoarthritis Treatment

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Abstract

Background

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a progressive chronic inflammatory disease that leads to cartilage degradation in the joints. OA is the topmost cause of disability worldwide, and its management poses a huge clinical challenge due to the dense, avascular, and occluded structure of the tissues. Current medications provide temporary relief, resorting to joint replacement as the last option in advanced OA. The existing treatments using therapeutic drugs suffer from systematic toxicity, low retention time, and low bioavailability. Stable and biocompatible hydrogels and emulsions have individually been utilized for delivering OA drugs to the target site, circumventing some of the challenges.

Discussion

Emulsion gels made up of hydrogel and oil-based emulsions have the potential to improve drug delivery efficacy and bioavailability as demonstrated in several studies for delivering nutrients and drugs. Given the efficacy of the hybrid emulsion gels, the prospect of synergistic therapy for OA treatment is discussed here. Moreover, stimuli-responsive emulsion-gel systems can help tune the release kinetics of therapeutics, opening up new possibilities for effective OA treatment.

Conclusion

In this perspective, we systematically present the current diagnosis methods, treatment options, and the current needs for therapeutic interventions in OA, discussing the prospect of combination drug delivery using emulsion gels.

Lay summary

The prevalence of osteoarthritis (OA) worldwide calls for urgent treatment strategies to be developed for OA treatment. In this perspective, we discussed the utility and limitations of existing materials or systems employed in OA treatment. Emulsion gels, consisting of oil droplets inside hydrogels, can be used as a dual drug delivery scaffold for OA treatment. The hydrogel in the system would increase the biocompatibility of the emulsion gel and prevent the degradation of drugs encapsulated within the gel as well as the oil droplets. Hydrophobic drugs would go into the oil part whereas the hydrophilic ones will reside in the hydrogel. In the future, intelligent stimuli-responsive emulsion gel materials for chondrocytes regeneration will respond to endogenous stimuli produced from the OA-affected joints to facilitate tissue growth, healing, and recovery.

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Fig. 1
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Adapted from ref. [20]. Copyright © 2015, American Chemical Society

Fig. 4

Reproduced from Ref. [65] with permission from the Royal Society of Chemistry

Fig. 5

Reproduced from Ref. [21] with permission from the Royal Society of Chemistry

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Acknowledgements

S.R. acknowledges Science and Engineering Research Board (ECR/2018/00255) for financial support. M.S. is thankful to UGC for the doctoral research fellowship. Financial support from the DBT-RA Program in Biotechnology and Life Sciences (Award Letter No. DBT-RA/2021/January/NE/231) is gratefully acknowledged by S.D.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Research Centre, Indian Institute of Science, C. V. Raman Road, Bengaluru, 560012, Karnataka, India

    Sourav Das, Manju Solra & Subinoy Rana

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  1. Sourav Das
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  2. Manju Solra
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  3. Subinoy Rana
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SD and MS: conceptualization, drafting, and literature survey.

SR: conceptualization, drafting, literature survey, editing, and critical review of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Subinoy Rana.

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Das, S., Solra, M. & Rana, S. Emulsion Gel: a Dual Drug Delivery Platform for Osteoarthritis Treatment. Regen. Eng. Transl. Med. 9, 279–294 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40883-022-00282-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40883-022-00282-x

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