ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Targeting the epithelial lining of the large bowel is a complicated challenge in the multidisciplinary area of drug delivery. The following medical conditions could merit from a sophisticated design anchoring a drug or drug platform in the colonic mucosa: local treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) (1); local treatment of colon motility disorders (e.g., irritable bowel syndrome) with topical application of sedative or antispasmodic drugs (2); and orally administered chemotherapy of colon polyps (first stage in colon carcinoma) with some nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (3,4) such as sulindac (5,6) or celecoxib (4) in mono (7) or combinatorial therapy. There is also anticipation that protein drugs can be absorbed better from the large bowel due to hypothetic reduced proteolytic activity in this organ (8).
