ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes work to date on the application of supercritical fluids to the production of microparticles of medical interest. Although the potential benefits of using supercritical fluids are numerous, fundamental understanding of supercritical particle formation is lacking. The use of supercritical fluids as media for the formation of microparticles for therapeutic applications is a very recent development. The production of polymeric microspheres and microparticles for controlled drug delivery is an area in which rapid expansion of supercritical solutions offers real promise for improving on existing approaches. A wide variety of techniques exist for fabricating polymer microsphere matrices for controlled drug delivery. Supercritical antisolvent processing exploits the low solvent power of supercritical fluids with moderate critical temperatures toward high polymers, proteins, and many biological molecules. Controlled-release systems for polypeptides have many advantages over conventional means of peptide distribution. Microencapsulated drug-bioerodible polymer systems have applications as controlled-release systems for intravenous, intramuscular, and nasal drug delivery.
