Impacts of nanomedicines in ocular pharmacotherapy

Introduction: The integrity of the cells/tissues in anterior and/or posterior segments of the eye plays a crucial role in biofunctions of the vision. To maintain ocular homeostasis, selective restrictiveness of the ophthalmic membranes and barriers control must act on shuttling of biomolecules. Thus, not all attempts to apply de novo nanotechnology approaches for ocular pharmacotherapy have met with the same successes as those cited here in this review, and sometimes these novel technologies tools provoke a great deal of challenges and hurdles mainly because of functional presence of these barriers. Methods: Recent published articles related to applications of ocular nanomedicines were reviewed and highlighted in this review article. Results: It seems the emergence of nanomedicines have arisen great hopes for ophthalmic pharmacotherapy, in which nanostructured medicines are expected to be able to cross the restrictive barriers of the eye. Although such fast inauguration of ocular nanomedicines will literally convey new challenges in the regulatory and translational processes, it will also grant a prolific platform from which many exciting, and yet unimagined, applications of biomedical nanotechnology will emerge for pharmacotherapy of the eye. Conclusion: This review provides recent advancements on ocular nanomedicines.