Image-guided delivery of therapeutics to the brain

CNS disorders still prevail to be one of the largest disease areas where current treatment options are limited and there has been growing interest among academia, industry, and research organizations to explore novel options to deliver therapeutics to the brain. Novel strategies encompassing invasive and noninvasive approaches for CNS delivery, to overcome physiological and technical challenges has been the current norm. CNS imaging offers improved diagnosis of disorders and techniques like X-ray computed tomography (CT), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have proved to be promising for cerebral imaging. Combinations of functional and structural imaging modalities such as PET/MRI and SPECT/MRI are known to be used for preclinical and clinical imaging. The concept of image-guided targeted delivery of therapeutics to the CNS is seen to be an effective strategy to compliment the current diagnosis regimen with a therapeutic end goal. Combination of nanoparticulate drug delivery with an imaging component has shown initial promise to improve targeting of therapeutics to the CNS