Solid Lipid Nanoparticles for the Management of Allergic Airway Diseases

The allergic airway diseases comprise both allergic rhinitis and asthma which are amongst the top three ailments of the twenty-first century requiring special attention for control and prevention. Various conventional drug moieties are available for treatment of allergic airway diseases, but these drug moieties show therapeutic inefficiency due to poor aqueous solubility, low bioavailability, higher adverse effects, lack of drug targeting, and drug resistance. Nanotechnology-based drug carriers like liposomes, dendrimers, solid lipid nanoparticles, nanostructured lipid carriers, polymeric micelles, polymeric nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, metallic nanoparticles, and nanoemulsions have attracted the attention of scientists for efficacious treatment of allergic airway diseases. Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) are more popular amongst all nanocarriers owing to their nanosize, higher solubility, greater bioavailability, higher entrapment efficiency, being easy to scale up, drug targeting to the lungs, and being easy to prepare. Moreover, the limitations of poor physical stability, low entrapment efficiency, and opsonization associated with liposomes, dendrimers, and polymeric nanoparticles are excluded in SLNs. Hence, this chapter was written with a view to explore the potential of SLNs in efficacious treatment of allergic airway diseases. In this chapter, various conventional drugs used for treatment of allergic airway diseases, composition of SLNs, and potential of SLNs in allergic airway diseases along with the research related to SLNs having drugs used in allergic airway diseases have been summarized.