Targeted drug delivery

Targeted drug delivery is a method of delivering medication to a patient in a manner that increases the concentration of the medication in some parts of the body relative to others.

In traditional drug delivery systems such as oral ingestion or intravascular injection, the medication is distributed throughout the body through the systemic blood circulation. For most therapeutic agents, only a small portion of the medication reaches the organ to be affected. Targeted drug delivery seeks to concentrate the medication in the tissues of interest while reducing the relative concentration of the medication in the remaining tissues. This improves efficacy while reducing side effects.

Targeted drug delivery can be used to treat many diseases, such as the cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. However, the most important application of targeted drug delivery is to treat cancerous tumors.

There are two kinds of targeted drug delivery, active targeted drug delivery, such as some antibody medications; and passive targeted drug delivery, such as the Enhanced Permeability and Retention effect (EPR-effect).