A review on recent advances in nanomedicines for the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) has been the most life-threatening contagious disease caused by pathogenic mycobacterium tuberculosis. The World Health Organization (WHO) report, 2020 estimated that this highly burden bacterial infection becomes the prime root for the death of 1.4 million people worldwide. There are several conventional regimens have been approved to treat this disease. However, due to long term therapy, liver toxicity, multiple dosing frequency and multi-and extensive drug resistance leads to patient non-complaint. Moreover, the complex nature of mycobacterial cells, granuloma formation, high dose, and alteration of gene expression also stand as a barrier that limits the use of conventional treatment. Hence, to mitigate quality life-infected controversial pathways, nanotechnology-based novel nanocarriers are emerging as a bloom strength to cure the deadliest tuberculosis. The current situation is aggressively been engaged in exploring novel nanomedicines that ultimately overcome the drawback associated with traditional tuberculosis treatment. Therefore, this review summarizes recent advancements in the nanomedicine-based delivery system for the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. We have explored current ongoing research such as polymeric, lipidic, metallic, phytofabricated, ligand anchored, nanoembedded microparticles, and multifunctionalized nanoparticles. In addition, this review also discusses challenges of nanomedicines in terms of toxicological and clinical aspects in terms of scale-up method, optimization of formualtion for clinical studies and quantification of drug in the humans are also discussed. We believe that this review will provide an insight on the role of nanomedicines in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis.