title: Thermosensitive hydrogels for drug delivery.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Controlled drug delivery has been widely applied in areas such as cancer therapy and tissue regeneration. Thermosensitive hydrogel-based drug delivery systems have increasingly attracted the attention of the drug delivery community, as the drugs can be readily encapsulated and released by the hydrogels.
  
  
  METHODS
  Thermosensitive hydrogels that can serve as drug carriers are discussed in this paper. Strategies used to control hydrogel properties, in order to tailor drug release kinetics, are also reviewed. This paper also introduces applications of the thermosensitive hydrogel-based drug delivery systems in cancer therapy and tissue regeneration.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  When designing a drug delivery system using thermosensitive hydrogels, one needs to consider what type of thermosensitive hydrogel needs to be used, and how to manipulate its properties to meet the desired drug release kinetics. For material selection, both naturally derived and synthetic thermosensitive polymers can be used. Various methods can be used to tailor thermosensitive hydrogel properties in order to achieve the desired drug release profile.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, 2041 College Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
authors.forename: Zhenqing
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Jianjun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004337:Drug Carriers; D006801:Humans; D020100:Hydrogels; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy; D010599:Pharmacokinetics; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012038:Regeneration; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D004337:Drug Carriers; D020100:Hydrogels