Electrospun nanofiber-based drug delivery platform: advances in diabetic foot ulcer management

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Electrospinning is a facile and viable method for the fabrication of nanofibers. Electrospun nanofiber has a great potential in providing local drug or therapeutic molecule delivery to the wound site. The versatile nature of this technique ensures a broad scope of material used in the fabrication of nanofibers.

Area covered

A brief introduction to diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) is covered with its pathogenesis, followed by the role of electrospun nanofibers in DFU. This review covers the evolution of the electrospinning technique over the past few years, various types of electrospun nanofibers reported for DFU or chronic diabetic wounds, the challenges associated with the preparation of nanofibers, and various methods to evaluate their efficacy and performance in diabetic wound healing.

Expert opinion

Electrospinning-based nanofibers provide a safe, effective, and multifunctional system for effective management of DFU.

KEYWORDS:

• Electrospun nanofibers
• diabetic foot ulcer
• drug delivery
• wound healing

Article highlights

• The chronic foot ulcer is one of the major comorbid challenges associated with the manifestation of Type-2 Diabetic Mellitus, responsible for a high mortality rate which necessitates the development of a localized drug delivery system (DDS) that can deliver the drug payload and also has the property to facilitate the wound closure.

• Although nanofibers can be prepared by numerous methods, electrospinning is one of the most versatile techniques used for the preparation of nanofibers. Nanofiber-based DDSs, have shown a significant role in localized delivery of drugs, accelerating the healing rate, and achieving complete closure of chronic wounds.

• Electrospun nanofibers have seen constant development with time from the simple nanofibers to newer generations of nanofibers such as blend, composite, and core-shell electrospun and hybrid nanofibers, with each having distinct physicochemical and mechanochemical characteristics providing the respective nanofibers distinct advantages for the better management of the diabetic wound.

• The optimization of parameters involved in the nanofiber preparation is critical for process reproducibility, ensuring the desired properties of nanofibers, maintaining the uniformity, and maximizing the performance of the electrospinning technique, which can be categorized as; static, processing, and environmental parameters.

• Electrospun nanofibers have emerged as an efficient platform for effective management of chronic wounds like diabetic foot ulcers. But the translation of nanofiber-based DDSs to clinical application as a localized wound management platform requires a comprehensive physicochemical and mechanochemical characterization, as well as extensive in-vitro and in-vivo evaluation of drug release and wound healing efficiency.

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Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.