Pharmaceutical and biomedical applications of cellulose nanofibers: a review

Most actual medicine materials are derived from fossil fuel resources, thus accentuating pollution and climate change, calling for alternative, sustainable materials. For example, cellulose nanofibers possess high specific surface area, high mechanical strength, reactive surface, biocompatibility, biodegradability, nontoxicity, and low cost. Here, I review pharmaceutical applications of cellulose nanofibers in controlled drug delivery, excipient, wound healing dressing material, anticancer, antimicrobial, and transdermal drug delivery. Methods to prepare cellulose nanofiber-based hydrogels, with a focus on three-dimensional printing, and applications in drug delivery and tissue engineering, are detailed. Cellulose nanofiber films show drug entrapment efficiency of more than 90%, thus facilitating the release of hydrophobic drugs, e.g. indomethacin in 15–30 days and itraconazole up to 3 months. Cellulose nanofibers as excipient are increasing the tensile strength of tablets, and enhancing the stability of emulsion by viscosity modification. Cellulose nanofibers wound dressing revealed high biocompatibility and rapid epithelialization of burn wounds in 11–21 days. Anticancer drug-loaded hydrogels exhibited the highest drug release at pH 7.4 by diffusion. Additionally, I present 14 miscellaneous biomedical applications of cellulose nanofibers for blood vessel, nucleus pulposus replacement, enzyme immobilization, cardiac, ophthalmic, and neural tissue engineering.