Abstract
Nanometals are widely being used for diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of medical conditions. Majorly, nanometals are used to facilitate the delivery of drug to targeted site, minimize drug’s penetration to healthy tissues, increase drug’s bioavailability, and inhibit its uptake and elimination from the blood by reticuloendothelial process. Despite several benefits, use of nanoparticles as drug carriers is also associated with many problems including instability in blood during circulation, undesirable biodistribution, and toxicity. Research has shown that modification in physicochemical properties including shape, size, and surface can develop a nanometal with desired properties but devoid of associated problems. This review introduces the clinical impact of important physicochemical properties of nanometals such as surface modification, shape, and size. Further, the review focuses on evidence reporting the impact of these properties on pharmacokinetics of nanometals with focus on gold, silver, and iron oxide due to their wide use in the medical field.
Nanometals have gained wide application in the drug delivery system. Physicochemical properties of nanometals (gold, silver, and iron) such as size, shape, and surface modification affect the pharmacokinetics parameters including cellular uptake, targeted biodistribution, improved metabolism, and clearance from untargeted organs. These physicochemical properties can be modified to improve the pharmacokinetics of nanometals, thus facilitating delivery of drug to the targeted organs in the body. [Display omitted]