ABSTRACT

Colon targeting has been a subject of interest since quite few decades. Drugs are targeted to the colon intending local action for the management of colonic diseases like inflammatory bowel diseases or colon cancer as well as for systemic action and can assure major benefits to the patients including reduced side effects or better therapeutic activity. However major challenges for drug targeting to the colon may limit its use. Several approaches are thus devised to target drugs to the colon successfully. One of them is the use of natural polysaccharides which utilize the huge population of microbiota present in the colonic tract. In this present review we would throw a light on few of the most popular natural polysaccharides used by researchers for this challenging task and the novel techniques and devices used for this purpose, especially in the last decade. Recent works have been discussed thoroughly which surely throws a light on the present scenario of colonic targeting and future directions of research.