Targeted Drug Delivery for Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases

Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases (CCVD) are a major and increasing health burden worldwide. Although treatments have been made a certain progress, the development of novel therapies for patients remains a major research object. There are a lot of drugs against CCVD, but most of them lack tissue specificity with a short half-life, which seriously limits their extensive clinical application. Utilization of some pathophysiological changes caused by CCVD, targeted drug distribution in CCVD patients could be achieved. The current review aims to capture various drug delivery systems transporting drug specifically to vascular disease, including passive, active and physicochemical targeted delivery carriers. Their design strategies and mechanisms are described in detail. The present limitations and future perspective are also discussed. Keywords: Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, pathophysiological changes, passive, active, physicochemical, targeting, drug delivery, carriers.