Nanoparticle-Based Drug Delivery System—A Target Strategy for Osteoarthritis Treatment

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a bone and joint disease with pathological characteristics such as articular cartilage degeneration injury and synovial and subchondral bone reactive hyperplasia. Once cartilage is damaged, it is difficult to repair it by itself. Current clinical practice is mainly limited to symptomatic treatment, not changing the degenerative process of osteoarthritis. The important goal of nanomedicine is targeted delivery. Nanoparticles (NPs) can provide many unique potential functions for the targeted treatment of arthritis. This review summarizes the research progress of nanomaterials as a drug delivery system in the treatment of osteoarthritis from three aspects: (1) the etiology of OA and the current research status of applying nanoparticles to treat OA, (2) the construction of osteoarthritis models, and (3) the classification of nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems.