Clinically available medications face several hurdles that limit their therapeutic activity, including restricted access to the target tissues due to biological barriers, low bioavailability, and poor pharmacokinetic properties. Drug delivery systems (DDS), such as nanoparticles (NPs) and hydrogels, have been widely employed to address these issues. Furthermore, the DDS improves drugs' therapeutic efficacy while reducing undesired side effects caused by the unspecific distribution over the different tissues. The integration of NPs into hydrogels has emerged to improve their performance when compared with each DDS individually. The combination of both DDS enhances the ability to deliver drugs in a localized and targeted manner, paired with a controlled and sustained drug release, resulting in increased drug therapeutic effectiveness. With the incorporation of the NPs into hydrogels, it is possible to apply the DDS locally and then provide a sustained release of the NPs in the site of action, allowing the drug uptake in the required location. Additionally, most of the materials used to produce the hydrogels and NPs present low toxicity. This article provides a systematic review of the polymeric NPs-loaded hydrogels developed for various biomedical applications, focusing on studies that present in vivo data.
Keywords: administration routes; cancer therapy; chronic wound treatment; drug release; local delivery; nanomaterials; polymers; thermosensitive hydrogel.