Smart Hydrogel for the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis
Wenfeng Jiao, Xueya Wang, Hui Xu, Yang Fei, Yong Jin

TL;DR
This paper reviews smart hydrogels as a potential advanced treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, focusing on their design and challenges in clinical translation.
Contribution
The paper provides a systematic review of preparation strategies and stimulus-responsive mechanisms of smart hydrogels for rheumatoid arthritis treatment.
Findings
Smart hydrogels offer targeted and controlled drug delivery in the inflamed joint microenvironment.
Temperature-responsive and multi-responsive hydrogels are most frequently studied for localized therapy.
Clinical translation is hindered by biocompatibility, standardization, and manufacturing challenges.
Abstract
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease that imposes substantial physical, emotional, and socioeconomic burdens on patients. Conventional therapeutic approaches are often limited by systemic toxicity, inadequate joint targeting, and variable patient responses, highlighting the urgent need for advanced drug delivery systems. Smart hydrogels have emerged as a promising platform for RA treatment due to their unique three-dimensional hydrophilic networks, excellent biocompatibility, and tunable physicochemical properties. This review systematically summarizes the preparation strategies and design principles of smart hydrogels, with an emphasis on chemically and physically crosslinked networks as well as composite systems. It further outlines the major stimulus-responsive release mechanisms—including temperature, pH, reactive oxygen species (ROS), light, and enzyme…
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Taxonomy
TopicsHydrogels: synthesis, properties, applications · Osteoarthritis Treatment and Mechanisms · Polymer Surface Interaction Studies
