Review Article NANOSPONGE FOR ENHANCING SOLUBILITY AND BIOAVAILABILITY OF ORAL DRUGS: REVIEW ISHAK E. KERILOS 1 , HOSSAM S. EL-SAWY 1* , SHERIF K. ABU ELYAZID 2 , MAGDY IBRAHIM 3 1 Department of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Egyptian Russian University, Badr City-11829, Cairo, Egypt. 2 Department of Pharmaceutics and Industrial Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Al-Azhar University, Cairo-11651, Egypt. 3 Department of Pharmaceutics and Industrial Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University, Cairo-11562, Egypt *Corresponding author: Hossam S. El-Sawy; * Email: hossam-elsawy@eru.edu.eg Received: 26 Sep 2023, Revised and Accepted: 25 Oct 2023 ABSTRACT New developments in nanoparticle-based oral medicine have resulted in a profusion of studies to improve the solubility, permeability, and chemical stability of various medications. Nanosponges (NSs) are one type of carriers utilized in this many carrier systems. NSs are nanosized carriers with a sponge-like shape. They have hydrophilic cavities and hydrophobic branches, which aid in the loading of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic medicines. Nano-sponges have a 3-dimensional network and a nanometric cavity size. NSs are very porous, with the capacity to entrap active moieties and the advantage of controlled release. These tiny sponges circulate in the body to reach a specific place and release the medicine in a controlled and predictable manner, assisting in the resolution of numerous issues such as drug toxicity and low bioavailability. One of their significant impacts is the ability to enhance oral absorption and bioavailability. The primary goal of this review is to provide brief updates on NSs for increasing medicine oral absorption as well as their evolutions in loading drugs for enhancing their oral deliverability and treatment of a variety of diseases. Kyewords: Nanosponge-based delivery systems, Methods of preparations, Cyclodextrins, Cross-linking agents, Systemic delivery, Enhanced oral absorption © 2024 The Authors. Published by Innovare Academic Sciences Pvt Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.22159/ijap.2024v16i1.49490 Journal homepage: https://innovareacademics.in/journals/index.php/ijap INTRODUCTION Oral administration is clearly proposed as the most convenient drug administration method, with various advantages over alternative delivery channels, including lack of discomfort sensation, ease of self-administration, and great patient compliance. The great majority of marketed medications are frequently delivered orally around the world. The efficacy of these medications is determined by their oral absorbability, which is determined primarily by drug- based characteristics and the physiology of the gut [1, 2]. Some medications' undesirable properties, such as poor hydrophobicity, low permeability, chemical instability, and excessive first-pass metabolism, have a deleterious impact on drug transit through the gastrointestinal (GI) barriers [3]. The GI tract has physical, chemical, enzymatic, and biological membrane barriers that affect the transit and effectiveness of poorly absorbed medicines [4, 5]. Nanosponges (NSs) are tiny mesh-like structures (fig. 1) that may carry a wide range of substances [6, 7]. They have a revealed spherical colloidal nature and have been found to possess a very high solubilization capacity for poorly soluble medicines due to their inclusion and non-inclusion behavior [8]. NSs have recently been produced and proposed for drug delivery. NSs can also solubilize poorly water-soluble medicines [9], providing extended release and enhancing drugs bioavailability [7, 10]. In this review, brief discuss of benefits and problems of using drugs via oral route as well as detailed different approaches and types of NS-based delivery systems with a focus on their applications as an oral-formulations with enhanced absorption, have been illustrated. It is important to note that the Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB) platform was used to acquire data for this review from Innovare Academic Sciences (IAS) journals and other sources and publishers. In order to gather information from research articles and review articles that have been published in the last 20 y and are related to the chosen keywords, search criteria have been undertaken using the keywords (Nanosponge-based delivery systems, Methods of preparations, Cyclodextrins, Cross-linking agents, Systemic delivery, and Enhanced oral absorption). The results of data collecting from the aforementioned sources have been thoroughly acquired, examined, summarized, and appropriately cited in this review. Fig. 1: SEM images of nanosponges [11] International Journal of Applied Pharmaceutics ISSN- 0975-7058 Vol 16, Issue 1, 2024