The next generation therapy for lung cancer: taking medicine by inhalation

Abstract The inhalation administration method which has been applied to treat respiratory diseases has the characteristics of painlessness high efficiency and non-invasiveness, and the drug can also be targeted at the organ level first to reduce the loss of drug during circulation. Therefore, delivering medicine by inhalation administration has brought a new turnaround for lung cancer treatment. Herein from the perspective of combining traditional drug delivery design strategies with new drug delivery methods how to improve lung targeting efficiency and treatment efficacy is discussed. We also discuss the comparative advantages of inhaled drug delivery and traditional administration in the treatment of lung cancer such as intravenous injection. And the researches are divided into different forms of inhalation administration studied in the treatment of lung cancer in recent years, such as single-component loaded and multi-component loaded systems and their advantages. Finally, the obstacles of the application of carrier materials for inhalation administration and the prospects for improvement of lung cancer treatment methods are presented.