Dry powder platform for pulmonary drug delivery

The phenomenon of particle interaction involved in pulmonary drug delivery belongs to a wide variety of disciplines of particle technology, in particular, fluidization. This paper reviews the basic concepts of pulmonary drug delivery with references to fluidization research, in particular, studies on Geldart group C powders. Dry powder inhaler device-formulation combination has been shown to be an effective method for delivering drugs to the lung for treatment of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cystic fibrosis. Even with advanced designs, however, delivery efficiency is still poor mainly due to powder dispersion problems which cause poor lung deposition and high dose variability. Drug particles used in current inhalers must be 1–5 μm in diameter for effective deposition in small-diameter airways and alveoli. These powders are very cohesive, have poor flowability, and are difficult to disperse into aerosol due to cohesion arising from van der Waals attraction. These problems are well known in fluidization research, much of which is highly relevant to pulmonary drug delivery.