Electrospun Drug-Loaded Textiles for Biomedical and Healthcare Applications

Electrospinning is a versatile technology for the production of polymer micro/nanoscale fibers. It provides the direct addition of bioactive payloads into micro/nanofibers thus improving the encapsulation efficiency and reducing the burst release via proper selection of drug-polymer-solvent system or electrospinning setup. In addition, since electrospun fibers have one dimension at the microscopic scale but another dimension at the macroscopic one, it is possible to combine the advantages possessed by functional materials on the nanometer scale. A large surface to volume ratio, with the properties of conventional solid membranes, such as ease of manipulation and applicability in any size and shape, making them suitable for biomedical or healthcare applications both topically (i.e. skin) and locally (i.e. tumor). This communication deals with electrospun fibrous systems containing active compounds extracts from plants such as Artemisinin and Propolis; these systems have been properly realized to preserve the pharmacological activity of drugs and evaluated as potential delivery systems for vector-born deseases and cancer, reducing the damage to non-target organism and environment.