Too much of a good thing, in all actuality, can be quite the opposite. Ideal medications should, of course, minimize side effects, while maximizing the therapeutic effect. However, achieving the correct therapeutic dose is not always simple. It doesn’t help that many modern medications are often akin to killing a fly with a sledgehammer, meaning that a single drug will often lead to a massive amount of systemic side effects, in order to treat one single disease state. For this reason, in combination with the fact that pharmaceutical drug development often surpasses our knowledge of the underlying biological mechanisms, creating safe medications that have low levels of systemic adverse reactions is often an uphill battle. To reduce adverse effects, precise and directed drug delivery systems are necessary. Several new lines of research are making these needed systems a reality.

Described in the article Transport of Topical Anesthetics in Vitamin E Loaded Silicone Hydrogel Contact Lenses, scientists successfully created and performed a proof of concept test of contact lenses that may safely deliver extended and direct release of anesthetic medication to the eyes of LASIK surgery patients. Older methods of pain administration for LASIK surgery are usually short lasting, with greater chance of side effects and even overdose. While, these lenses are a very specialized treatment option for LASIK patients, they illustrate how directed treatment can be utilized for pain management. If this work inspires the development of other innovative pain medication delivery systems to various sites of the body, it could aid in the development of effective hospital pain management protocols, and limit the overall systemic effects of this medication that can lead to addiction.

Cancer chemotherapy is another class of medication that desperately needs a precise drug delivery system. If other medications are akin to killing an ant with a sledgehammer, cancer medication would be more akin to a stick of dynamite. Cancer is an uncontrolled rapid growth of our own cellular tissue. Anything that is toxic to cancer cells will usually show a strong toxicity to normal cells as well. This is the unfortunate crux that researchers and hospitals have found in the attempts to cure cancer. To get enough of the drug to the site of the tumor, doses large enough to cause severe organ damage are often needed. If lucky enough to avoid such toxicity, the use of these medications can lead to the production of extremely aggressive secondary tumors. From tumor specific biomarkers and antibodies to nanotechnology, novel delivery systems for cancer medication are presently a hot topic for research.

The use of nanotechnology, although still in its infancy, is definitely exciting and shows great promise with regards to precise drug administration and treatment for cancer and other diseases. Tiny dancing robots that speed through our bloodstream delivering medication and mediating microsurgeries is a pretty cool way to combat cancer. Nanotechnology is not just about fancy little machines. It also encompasses nanoparticles, small chemically engineered compounds, which can help chaperone and direct pharmaceutical drugs with incredible precision to various disease sites including brain cancer. However, more research is necessary before such technology will be a clinical staple.

In my opinion, health care is in desperate need for a major overhaul and we are going in the right direction. Just remember, the cure should never be worse than the disease.