Advanced Nanomedicine: Redefining Therapeutic Paradigms for Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a chronic and recurrent gastrointestinal inflammatory disorder with a variety of painful clinical manifestations and an increased risk of cancerization or death, has become an emerging challenge to global healthcare due to its rapidly increasing incidence. At present, there is no efficient cure against IBD because of the elusive etiology and pathogenesis of IBD. Therefore, the development of alternative therapeutic strategies with positive clinical efficacy and reduced side effects is urgently needed. In recent years, the great prosperity of nanomedicine promoted by a variety of advanced nanomaterials is redefining more attractive and promising therapeutic strategies for IBD owing to their advantages in the physiological stability, bioavailability, and targeting of inflammatory sites. In this review, firstly the basic characteristics of healthy and inflammatory intestinal microenvironments are presented. Then, different administration routes and targeting strategies of nanotherapeutics for IBD treatment are reviewed. Subsequently, a specific focus is placed on the introduction of nanotherapeutic treatments based on different IBD pathogenesis. Finally, some future challenges and perspectives of the currently developed nanomedicines for IBD treatment are provided. It is believed that the above topics will attract researchers from various fields including medicine, biological sciences, materials, chemistry and pharmaceutics.