Copper Complexes of Non-steroidal Anti- Inflammatory Drugs

Plasma concentrations of low molecular weight copper-containing components are known to increase in response to various diseases such as arthritis, epilepsy, and cancer. Each of these diseases is recognized as having inflammatory components. Experiments on animals have shown that administration of low molecular weight copper complexes produced anti-inflammatory effects. Based on these results it was confirmed that the elevation of plasma copper-containing components represents a physiologic response which may lead to remission. Promotion of this physiologic response is a valid approach to the treatment of the diseases with inflammatory components. It was thus confirmed that copper complexes, a unique class of potentially more therapeutically useful anti-arthritic agents have both anti-inflammatory and antiulcer activitie. However, the use of discrete coordination complexes in drug delivery is at a very early stage of development mainly because of the chronic ingestion of NSAIDs which in turn increases the risk for gastrointestinal complications, ranging from dyspepsia to gastrointestinal bleeding, obstruction, and perforation. On the other hand, there has been significant progress in the use of coordination copper complexes in drug delivery revealing their unique advantages over many other drug delivery systems.