Abstract

Since 1980, Oral transmucosal drug delivery (OTDD) system is used in the treatment of systemic diseases. Despite of having various advantages of OTDD over the conventional oral drug delivery system like the ease of use and accessibility, surpassing the first pass metabolism etc., this method is still an emerging system due to relatively lower number of drug formulations available and anatomical barriers present in the oral cavity especially saliva. Ultrasound is one of the commonly used diagnostic tool and have many therapeutic applications in present scenario. Nowadays it is frequently used as an enhanced trans-epithelial drug delivery system which is based on the principle of transient cavitation that leads to the formation of microbubbles which in turn helps in the penetration of molecules into the permeable tissues. For the treatment of oral diseases, ultrasound is used in as local delivery of cancer chemotherapy, management of topical medication resistant inflammatory diseases, treatment of salivary gland injury and as a platform for gene therapy. This review explains the clinical application of ultrasound mediated transmucosal drug delivery in management of oral and systemic diseases.

Keywords: Ultrasound mediated drug delivery; Sonoporation; Gene therapy; Low frequency ultrasound

Keywords: OTDD: Oral Transmucosal Drug Delivery; LFU: Low Frequency Ultrasound; EGFR: Anti-Epidermal Growth Factor; Ca: Carcinoma; FAB: Fragment Antigen Binding; OSCC: Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma; DOX: Doxorubicin; MBs: Micro-Bubbles; MTOR: Mammalian Target of Rapamycin; EGFR-MBs: Anti-Epidermal Growth Factor Antibody Conjugated Micro-Bubbles; IV: Intravenous; DNA: Deoxyribonucleic Acid; AQP1: Aquaporin-1; IL: Interleukin; NF-KB: Nuclear Factor Kappa B; ODN: Oligo De-Oxynucleotide; ICAM: Intercellular Adhesion Molecule; TNF: Tumor Necrosis Factor