Dexamethasone: Insights into Pharmacological Aspects, Therapeutic Mechanisms, and Delivery Systems.

Dexamethasone (DEX) has been widely used to treat a variety of diseases, including autoimmune diseases, allergies, ocular disorders, cancer, and, more recently, COVID-19. However, DEX usage is often restricted in the clinic due to its poor water solubility. When administered through a systemic route, it can elicit severe side effects, such as hypertension, peptic ulcers, hyperglycemia, and hydro-electrolytic disorders. There is currently much interest in developing efficient DEX-loaded nanoformulations that ameliorate adverse disease effects inhibiting advancements in scientific research. Various nanoparticles have been developed to selectively deliver drugs without destroying healthy cells or organs in recent years. In the present review, we have summarized some of the most attractive applications of DEX-loaded delivery systems, including liposomes, polymers, hydrogels, nanofibers, silica, calcium phosphate, and hydroxyapatite. This review provides our readers with a broad spectrum of nanomedicine approaches to deliver DEX safely.

The role of nanotechnology in current COVID-19 outbreak.

COVID-19 has recently become one of the most challenging pandemics of the last century with deadly outcomes and a high rate of reproduction number. It emphasizes the critical need for the designing of efficient vaccines to prevent virus infection, early and fast diagnosis by the high sensitivity and selectivity diagnostic kits, and effective antiviral and protective therapeutics to decline and eliminate the viral load and side effects derived from tissue damages. Therefore, non-toxic antiviral nanoparticles (NPs) have been under development for clinical application to prevent and treat COVID-19. NPs showed great promise to provide nano vaccines against viral infections. Here, we discuss the potentials of NPs that may be applied as a drug itself or as a platform for the aim of drug and vaccine repurposing and development. Meanwhile, the advanced strategies based on NPs to detect viruses will be described with the goal of encouraging scientists to design effective and cost-benefit nanoplatforms for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.