Ophthalmic Drug Delivery Systems

Description

For new medications to be used effectively, and for those now available to provide maximal benefit, improvements in ocular drug delivery are essential. Drug delivery is no less vital than drug discovery. Although many drugs can be safely delivered by eye drops, effective treatment depends on patient compliance. Non-compliance is a major problem, especially in poorly educated patients and patients who are required to apply drops frequently. Lack of compliance frequently results in suboptimal therapeutics, which may lead to blindness. People with chronic conditions or debilitating disease find complicated eye drop regimens to be a serious handicap. This critically important book describes in vital detail and with great clarity the progress that has been made so far and the course that needs to be pursued in the future. In pharmacological memory of the author, it does not seem so long ago that no treatment for viral diseases, pilocarpine was the only treatment for glaucoma, and antibiotics were crude and relatively ineffective. Similarly, our present achievements in the field of ocular drug delivery may seem equally primitive as we follow the paths to future progress detailed in this book.