Drug delivery strategies for therapy of visceral leishmaniasis

Importance of the field: Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is the most overwhelming type of leishmaniasis associated with the poverty of developing countries and usually mortal if untreated. Most of the conventionally used dosage forms offer us the shortcomings of toxic side effects and emergence of drug resistance. Several efforts have been made to overcome the barriers involved in the treatment of VL. Colloidal carriers extensively represent the drug delivery systems (DDSs) for intracellular localization of antileishmanial compounds in macrophage-rich organs such as liver, spleen and bone marrow. These DDSs offer superior therapeutic efficacy over the conventional treatment in terms of site-specific drug delivery with reduced side effects. However, after 35 years of research in the field, AmBisome (R) (Amphotericin B liposome for injection, Astellas Pharma US, Inc.) is the only DDS used against the VL. Areas covered in this review: A literature search was performed (for drugs and DDSs against VL) on PubMed and through Google. What the reader will gain: This review aims to describe the pathophysiology of VL and its current conventional treatment with special reference to DDSs designed against VL. Take home message: On reviewing the conventional drugs and DDSs developed against VL, it is concluded that advances in the field of targeted drug delivery can result in more efficient strategies for the therapy of VL.