Natural and synthetic products used for the treatment of smoke inhalation: a patent review

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Inhalation injury is the leading cause of death in burn patients and is usually caused by the uninhibited absorption of smoke, which has an extremely toxic effect on the respiratory system. The physiopathology of inhalation injury covers multiple factors and the injured respiratory system may present deterioration in a few hours.

Areas covered: In this present review, we analyzed patents based on both natural and synthetic products developed for the treatment of smoke inhalation. We found 14 patents in Espacenet, 25 in WIPO and none in the USPTO data search.

Expert opinion: Several previous reports on treatments used for smoke inhalation are discussed. Although there are a number of research based products for this injury, there has been no review of the patents dealing with treatments for smoke inhalation. The development of novel natural or synthetic products are discussed in detail in the review.

KEYWORDS:

• Smoke inhalation
• pulmonary injury
• natural products
• synthetic products

Article highlights

• Respiratory distress is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in patients affected by fire incidents.

• The search for suitable treatments for inhalation injury is continuing.

• Inhalation induces a number of pathophysiologic responses encompassing multiple factors, and the injured respiratory system may deteriorate within a few hours.

• Heparin inhibits coagulation proteases and reduces pulmonary fibrotic conditions. The acute lung injury (ALI) was significantly attenuated and survival improved after i.p. treatment of wild-type mice with soluble apyrase or 5ʹ-nucleotidase

• Estrogen pretreatment has been shown to attenuate development of pulmonary hypertension. Orgotein, the drug version of Cu-Zn superoxide dismutase, is a new and safe anti-inflammatory agent.

This box summarizes key points contained in the article.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico/CNPq/Brazil and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Sergipe/FAPITEC-SE for the financial support.

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was funded by Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico/CNPq/Brazil and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Sergipe/FAPITEC-SE.