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Review
. 2022 May 4:16:1311-1347.
doi: 10.2147/DDDT.S357386. eCollection 2022.

Knee Osteoarthritis Therapy: Recent Advances in Intra-Articular Drug Delivery Systems

Luoyang Ma  1   2 , Xiaoyan Zheng  1   3 , Rui Lin  1 , Antonia RuJia Sun  4 , Jintong Song  1 , Zhiqiang Ye  1 , Dahong Liang  1 , Min Zhang  1 , Jia Tian  1 , Xin Zhou  2 , Liao Cui  1 , Yuyu Liu  1 , Yanzhi Liu  1   3   5
Affiliations
Review

Knee Osteoarthritis Therapy: Recent Advances in Intra-Articular Drug Delivery Systems

Luoyang Ma et al. Drug Des Devel Ther. .

Abstract

Drug delivery for osteoarthritis (OA) treatment is a continuous challenge because of their poor bioavailability and rapid clearance in joints. Intra-articular (IA) drug delivery is a common strategy and its therapeutic effects depend mainly on the efficacy of the drug-delivery system used for OA therapy. Different types of IA drug-delivery systems, such as microspheres, nanoparticles, and hydrogels, have been rapidly developed over the past decade to improve their therapeutic effects. With the continuous advancement in OA mechanism research, new drugs targeting specific cell/signaling pathways in OA are rapidly evolving and effective drug delivery is critical for treating OA. In this review, recent advances in various IA drug-delivery systems for OA treatment, OA targeted strategies, and related signaling pathways in OA treatment are summarized and analyzed based on current publications.

Keywords: drug delivery; intra-articular; knee; osteoarthritis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this review.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic of an osteoarthritis (OA) joint. OA is a disease of the entire joint in which various tissues in the joint are affected and undergoing progressive lesions, including 1) cartilage degradation and breaking down; 2) bone remodeling and sclerosis; 3) osteophytes formation; 4) synovial hypertrophy/synovitis; 5) meniscal damage; 6) ligament dysfunction; 7) muscle atrophy; and 8) inflammation/fibrosis of the infrapatellar fat pad.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Representative half-lives or retention times of intra-articular (IA) drug (A)/intra-articular drug (B) delivery system in a joint.
Figure 3
Figure 3
A statistical chart of the research status of articular injection drug-delivery systems from the past five years.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Representative research targets of IA DDSs.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Statistics over the past five years on the current research status of IA DDSs target signaling pathways.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Recent reported IA DDSs in pre-clinical/clinical trials/approved stages. (A) Proportion of different formulation of recent reported IA DDSs in pre-clinical/clinical trials/approved stages; (B) proportion of recent reported IA DDSs in pre-clinical/clinical trials/approved stages.
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