Thermo-sensitive hydrogel and their biomedical applications

Abstract

Thermo-sensitive hydrogel has attracted considerable attention as a kind of intelligent material in the field of biochemistry and biomedicine. They have many kinds of advantages such as easy formulation to deliver hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs, high drug loading capacity, convenient administration, sustained drug release capacity, target specificity by using injections thereby avoiding the need of surgery. Besides, thermo-sensitive hydrogel has attracted an increasing concern for its sustained release behavior, biocompatibility, and biodegradability. The biomedical application of thermo-sensitive hydrogel in the fields of tissue engineering, mucosal drug delivery, and local injection in recent years were studied in this review according to the latest relevant literature.