Bioresorbable polymer nanoparticles in the medical and pharmaceutical fields: A promising field

In the last decades, a wide variety of nanoparticles (NPs) has been developed, aiming at sensible pharmaceutical and biomedical applications such as imaging and tumor treatment. Among these nanosized systems, a relevant role is played by polymer NPs. This is mainly due to the versatility of the polymer chemistry, that allows obtaining very complex structures specifically tuned for the purpose that they are projected for. However, polymer NPs have to face many hurdles before entering the clinical phase. First of all, the biocompatibility must be granted for all the employed materials. Further, the polymer matrix should be completely biodegradable, in order to grant the bioresorbability and, at the same time, to avoid the polymer accumulation inside the cells and the bloodstream. These requirements are completely fulfilled by the polyesters. In this chapter, a detailed review of the main techniques to produce bioresorbable polyester-based NPs is presented, together with a panorama about the possible applications and the hurdles this systems have to face before entering a clinical application