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Fighting Epilepsy with Nanomedicines—Is This the Right Weapon?

Epilepsy is a chronic and complex condition and is one of the most common neurological diseases, affecting about 50 million people worldwide. Pharmacological therapy has been, and is likely to remain, the main treatment approach for this disease. Although a large number of new antiseizure drugs (ASD...

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Autores principales: Matias, Mariana, Santos, Adriana O., Silvestre, Samuel, Alves, Gilberto
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9959131/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36839629
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics15020306
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author Matias, Mariana
Santos, Adriana O.
Silvestre, Samuel
Alves, Gilberto
author_facet Matias, Mariana
Santos, Adriana O.
Silvestre, Samuel
Alves, Gilberto
author_sort Matias, Mariana
collection PubMed
description Epilepsy is a chronic and complex condition and is one of the most common neurological diseases, affecting about 50 million people worldwide. Pharmacological therapy has been, and is likely to remain, the main treatment approach for this disease. Although a large number of new antiseizure drugs (ASDs) has been introduced into the market in the last few years, many patients suffer from uncontrolled seizures, demanding the development of more effective therapies. Nanomedicines have emerged as a promising approach to deliver drugs to the brain, potentiating their therapeutic index. Moreover, nanomedicine has applied the knowledge of nanoscience, not only in disease treatment but also in prevention and diagnosis. In the current review, the general features and therapeutic management of epilepsy will be addressed, as well as the main barriers to overcome to obtain better antiseizure therapies. Furthermore, the role of nanomedicines as a valuable tool to selectively deliver drugs will be discussed, considering the ability of nanocarriers to deal with the less favourable physical-chemical properties of some ASDs, enhance their brain penetration, reduce the adverse effects, and circumvent the concerning drug resistance.
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spelling pubmed-99591312023-02-26 Fighting Epilepsy with Nanomedicines—Is This the Right Weapon? Matias, Mariana Santos, Adriana O. Silvestre, Samuel Alves, Gilberto Pharmaceutics Review Epilepsy is a chronic and complex condition and is one of the most common neurological diseases, affecting about 50 million people worldwide. Pharmacological therapy has been, and is likely to remain, the main treatment approach for this disease. Although a large number of new antiseizure drugs (ASDs) has been introduced into the market in the last few years, many patients suffer from uncontrolled seizures, demanding the development of more effective therapies. Nanomedicines have emerged as a promising approach to deliver drugs to the brain, potentiating their therapeutic index. Moreover, nanomedicine has applied the knowledge of nanoscience, not only in disease treatment but also in prevention and diagnosis. In the current review, the general features and therapeutic management of epilepsy will be addressed, as well as the main barriers to overcome to obtain better antiseizure therapies. Furthermore, the role of nanomedicines as a valuable tool to selectively deliver drugs will be discussed, considering the ability of nanocarriers to deal with the less favourable physical-chemical properties of some ASDs, enhance their brain penetration, reduce the adverse effects, and circumvent the concerning drug resistance. MDPI 2023-01-17 /pmc/articles/PMC9959131/ /pubmed/36839629 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics15020306 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Matias, Mariana
Santos, Adriana O.
Silvestre, Samuel
Alves, Gilberto
Fighting Epilepsy with Nanomedicines—Is This the Right Weapon?
title Fighting Epilepsy with Nanomedicines—Is This the Right Weapon?
title_full Fighting Epilepsy with Nanomedicines—Is This the Right Weapon?
title_fullStr Fighting Epilepsy with Nanomedicines—Is This the Right Weapon?
title_full_unstemmed Fighting Epilepsy with Nanomedicines—Is This the Right Weapon?
title_short Fighting Epilepsy with Nanomedicines—Is This the Right Weapon?
title_sort fighting epilepsy with nanomedicines—is this the right weapon?
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9959131/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36839629
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics15020306
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