Nanoporous Anodic Alumina Platforms for Drug Delivery Applications: Recent Advances and Perspective

For several decades, nanoporous anodic alumina (NAA) has been prepared through inexpensive electrochemical anodization of aluminum to prepare diversified periodically ordered nanostructures. It acts as an excellent drug reservoir due to its excellent physical and chemical properties hence minimizing the drug loss and increasing bioavailability to the target site. A rapid increase in exploiting different NAA structures as a drug carrier has been published recently, justifying its potential use in localized drug delivery. In this review, advanced drug releasing structures based on NAA, in vivo and in vitro studies based on their chemical modification, biocompatibility, drug loading, and release kinetics with main focus on recent advances, its progress, and future outlook toward biomedical applications are discussed.