In the golden age of pharmaceutical nanocarriers, we are witnessing a maturation stage of the original concepts and ideas. There is no doubt that nanoformulations are extremely valuable tools for drug delivery applications; the current challenge is how to optimize them to ensure that they are safe, effective and scalable, so that they can be manufactured at an industrial level and advance to clinical use. In this context, lipid nanoparticles have gained ground, since they are generally regarded as non-toxic, biocompatible and easy-to-produce formulations. Pharmaceutical applications of lipid nanocarriers are a burgeoning field for the transport and delivery of a diversity of therapeutic agents, from biotechnological products to small drug molecules. This review starts with a brief overview of the characteristics of solid lipid nanoparticles and discusses the relevancy of performing systematic preformulation studies. The main applications, as well as the advantages that this type of nanovehicles offers in certain therapeutic scenarios are discussed. Next, pharmacokinetic aspects are described, such as routes of administration, absorption after oral administration, distribution in the organism (including brain penetration) and elimination processes. Safety and toxicity issues are also addressed. Our work presents an original point of view, addressing the biopharmaceutical aspects of these nanovehicles by means of descriptive statistics of the state-of-the-art of solid lipid nanoparticles research. All the presented results, trends, graphs and discussions are based in a systematic (and reproducible) bibliographic search that considered only original papers in the subject, covering a 7 years range (2013-today), a period that accounts for more than 60% of the total number of publications in the topic in the main bibliographic databases and search engines. Focus was placed on the therapeutic fields of application, absorption and distribution processes and current efforts for the translation into the clinical practice of lipid-based nanoparticles. For this, the currently active clinical trials on lipid nanoparticles were reviewed, with a brief discussion on what achievements or milestones are still to be reached, as a way of understanding the reasons for the scarce number of solid lipid nanoparticles undergoing clinical trials.

Self-medication is defined as the selection and use of medicines by individuals (or a member of the individuals family) to treat self-recognized or self-diagnosed conditions or symptoms. Several benefits have been linked to appropriate self-medication, among them: increased access to medication and relief for the patient, the active role of the patient in his or her own health care, better use of physicians and pharmacists skills and reduced (or at least optimized) burden of governments due to health expenditure linked to the treatment of minor health conditions However, self-medication is far from being a completely safe practice, in particular in the case of non-responsible self-medication. Potential risks of self-medication practices include: incorrect self-diagnosis, delays in seeking medical advice when needed, infrequent but severe adverse reactions, dangerous drug interactions, incorrect manner of administration, incorrect dosage, incorrect choice of therapy, masking of a severe disease and risk of dependence and abuse. In this short review the author analyzes recent literature on some of the most important dangers related to self-medication practices, particularly: polypharmacy and drug interactions, medications abuse or dependence, misdiagnosis and incorrect choice of treatment. The author also proposes measures that could be adopted in order to solve or improve these issues.

The great efforts of many researchers have brought down some of the barriers that exist to turn a good in vitro compound into a potential in vivo drug. The advent of pharmaceutical nanotechnology has allowed an arsenal of drugs with poor stability, low solubility, high off-target toxicity and other disadvantageous features, to be accessible as pharmaceutical products that could be administered to a patient. Nanotechnology was introduced in drug delivery very long ago, but has flourished with unprecedented intensity during the last twenty years and now a diversity of nano-based preparations are at clinical stage of development or already available in the market. Undoubtedly, nanotechnology plays a key role in future pharmaceutical development and pharmacotherapy. In the first part of this review, we have already discussed recent (2008-2012) patents on linear polymer-based nanosystems (nanogels, nanospheres and nanocapsules) applications to cancer therapy. Here, we have expanded such analysis to branched polymers (dendrimers), self-assembling nanomicelles and lipid-based nanocarriers.