ABSTRACT
Liposomology includes multiple areas, from clinical application of the liposomal drugs to the development of various multifunctional liposomal systems to be used in therapy and diagnostics. This chapter discusses the pharmaceutical application of liposomes and provides an overview of various liposomal products currently under development at experimental and preclinical level. The use of the reverse phase evaporation method permits inclusion of 50 and more percent of the substance to be encapsulated from the water phase into the liposomes. Liposomes have also been shown to fuse with the microscopic pores on the cell surface, which appear as a result of natural or artificial ischemia, and deliver their contents including DNA into the cell cytoplasm. Long-circulating liposomes are investigated in details and widely used in biomedical in vitro and in vivo studies and have also found their way into clinical practice. Antibodies are the most diverse and broadly used specific ligands for experimental targeted chemotherapy of various tumors with drug-loaded liposomes.
