Polymeric micelles as drug carriers: their lights and shadows.

In this review, polymeric micelles as drug-targeting carriers are concisely explained. In the first introduction part, I describe a brief history of polymer micelle's research for drug targeting, and then I explain this review's focus. Since most other review articles concerning polymeric micelle carriers explain only what was achieved in the polymeric micelle's research, I describe this review by focusing on what was not done. In the second part, I take up three characteristics of polymeric micelle carriers by comparing their advantages and disadvantages, what was done and what was not done in the past studies, and what is easily achieved and what is difficult to be achieved with polymeric micelles. In the last part, I discuss three common problems of nano-sized drug carrier systems including polymeric micelles, and then I add a few comments on these problems.