Importance of the field: The understanding of pulmonary drug delivery and thus its utilization for medical purposes has remarkably advanced over the last decades. It has been recognized that this route of administration offers many advantages and several drug delivery systems have been developed accordingly. Thereby, single-use disposable dry powder inhalers may be considered an economically and therapeutically valuable option for both local and systemic administration of drugs to treat a variety of different disease states.
Areas covered in this review/what the reader will gain: This review highlights the required characteristics and potential applications of single-use disposable dry powder inhalers considering advantages as well as limitations of these drug delivery devices. Until now, such drug delivery systems have not become widely accepted. Several devices are available or under development and a few products have reached or completed the clinical phase, but none of them have received market authorization as yet.
Take home message: Recent advances in formulation and device design, however, can be considered encouraging and should eventually lead to a wider establishment of single-use disposable dry powder inhalers in pulmonary drug delivery.