Delivery of lung therapeutics using surfactant: a review

What is it about?

For a drug, in any disease, to be effective it needs to be delivered to the site where it is required to be therapeutically effective. For some organs, for example the skin, drug administration is relative straightforward, whereas for many other organs drug delivery can be a substantial hurdle limiting effective treatment. For the lung, some drugs, such as those used for Asthma, can effectively delivered by puffers. Unfortunately, for many other lung diseases, drugs needs to be delivered to deeper regions of the lung including areas where there can be significant lung damage. To overcome this hurdle, we and others have investigated the use of exogenous surfactant to assist in delivering drugs to the lung. Exogenous surfactant itself is a drug used extensively to treat premature babies with lung dysfunction. The surfactant is given directly to the lung and the specific properties of this material allow it to spread throughout the lung, including the deeper regions and injured areas. This review summarizes how we can utilize this material to deliver drugs, like antibiotics and anti-inflammatory agents to the lung. It provides a summary of the work that has been done, and outlines areas and approaches to further this concept to make surfactant-based therapeutics a clinical reality.

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Why is it important?

Treatment of several lung diseases is limited not by the lack of available drugs but by our ability to deliver these drugs to the required site in the lung. Two clinical examples that this applies to are bacterial infections (i.e. pneumonia) and a condition called Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Although more research is needed, improvements in our ability to deliver therapeutics in these diseases may ultimately reduce the mortality rate associated with these conditions.

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