Emulsion templated three-dimensional porous scaffolds for drug delivery

Irregular therapeutic concentration, non-target toxicity, and lower bioavailability are a few of the limitations associated with the conventional drug administration routes that led to the need for exploring methods that allow sustained spatiotemporal release of the drugs. This controlled release of therapeutics is further essential for various biomedical applications like wound healing, tumor therapy, and tissue regeneration to provide a prolonged healing effect and fight possible infections and immune responses at the implant site. Among the various classes of materials studied for the purpose, polymers have attracted vast interest owing to their properties like the ease of fabrication into multiple shapes, tunable properties, optimized degradation kinetics, reduced toxicity, and compatibility with a wide range of drugs. This chapter focuses on the drug delivery systems that have been fabricated using high internal phase emulsions and finds applications in wound healing, tissue regeneration, drug preservation, and selective drug delivery.