Cyclodextrins as Carriers in Targeted Delivery of Therapeutic Agents: Focused Review on Traditional and Inimitable Applications

The objective of the article is to provide a comprehensive review on the application of cyclodextrin complexation in the delivery of drugs, bioactive molecules or macromolecules, with more emphasis on targeted drug delivery. Classically the cyclodextrins have been considered only as a means of improving the solubility of drugs; however, many attempts have been made to use cyclodextrins as drug delivery carriers. The cyclodextrin surface can be modified with various ligands for active targeting of drugs. It can also be passively targeted through various triggering mechanisms like thermal, magnetic, pH dependent, light dependent, ultrasound, etc. A comprehensive literature review has been done in the area of drug delivery using cyclodextrins. Applications of inclusion complexes in the drug delivery through various routes with examples are discussed. This review focuses on receptor mediated active targeting as well as stimuli responsive passive targeting of drugs/genes by using cyclodextrins. The article provides a detailed insight of the use of cyclodextrins and their derivatives on the targeted delivery of the drugs/genes.