In the last few decades, several formulations have evolved to realize better efficacy of administered anesthesia. These innovative formulations have facilitated surgeons to perform operations under purely local anesthesia, which provides extra protection and comfort to patients. Ease of delivery of local anesthesia is the need of the current generation, because some of the standard procedures are performed without the use of any sedative agent. Therefore, we are presenting here the various approaches of administration of local anesthetics by the surgeons. To construct a comprehensive report on various methods of anesthesia, we followed a systematic literature search of bibliographic databases of published articles recently in the international journals and publishers of repute. A comprehensive study of several reports of the field indicates that there are significant progresses towards developing novel formulations of anesthesia drugs as well as strategies of delivery. Among formulations, nanoparticle-based delivery approaches, including polymeric, liposomal, and micellar structures, have offered the much needed efficacy with low toxicity. Therefore, several of such techniques are at various stages of clinical trials. Nanotechnology-based delivery approaches have significantly emerged in recent past due to the low systemic toxicity and better efficacy of the nonconventional local anesthetics. The other methods of local anesthesia delivery such as transdermal, magnetophoresis, electrophoresis, and iontophoresis are frequently used due to them being minimally invasive and locally effective. Therefore, the combination of the nanotechnological methods with above mentioned techniques would significantly enhance the overall process of local anesthesia delivery and efficacy.
Keywords: Bupivacaine; Drug delivery; Liposomes; Local anesthesia; Micelles.
© King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology 2020.