Therapeutic Application of Nanoparticles in Hepatitis Diseases: A Narrative Review (2011-2021)

Abstract

Hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver parenchyma, is a viral disease. Addressing the challenges of hepatitis is very important. Therefore, using nanoparticles (NPs) in solving the problems of hepatitis diagnosis and treatment can be considered a promising approach. To the best of our knowledge, there are few studies to review the most widely used and effective NPs in the field of hepatitis. A literature review was performed on the publications available on the subject matter from 2011 to 2021. The keywords in different combinations such as "hepatitis," "nanobiosensor," "nanoparticles," "drug delivery," "vaccination," "HBV," and "HCV" were searched in databases of PubMed and Scopus. The collected data were then analyzed. Our review study for introducing the widely used metallic, polymeric and carbon-based NPs with more promising effects in the field of hepatitis virus infection shows that the most effective metallic NPs were gold nanoparticles for designing detection sensors. Also, among polymeric NPs, chitosan NPs seem to be the best nanocarriers in drug delivery and vaccination for hepatitis and among carbon-based NPs, carbon dots had more promising effects for biosensing of hepatitis. According to the results, it is suggested that more studies could be conducted on these NPs for further studies on hepatitis as well as other viral infectious diseases.

Keywords: HBV; HCV; Hepatitis; drug delivery; nanobiosensor; nanoparticles; vaccination.