Abstract

FABRICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF GASTRORETENTIVE DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM BASED IN SUPERPOROUS HYDROGEL COMPOSITE

Aakash Sahu* and Abha Doshi

ABSTRACT

Superporous hydrogels (SPHs) were originally developed as a novel drug delivery system to retain drugs in the gastric medium. These systems instantly swell in the stomach and maintain their integrity in the harsh stomach environment while releasing the pharmaceutical active ingredient. Superporous hydrogel composite (SPHC) have more porosity and more mechanical strength compared to SPH. In the present work, the main aim was to develop, evaluate and optimize superporous hydrogel composite of Zinc carnosine. Acrylamide and acrylic acid are the monomers used for the synthesis of ZnC-SPHCs. The prepared ZnC- SPHCs were evaluated for different physical properties and other evaluation parameters viz; equilibrium swelling ratio, equilibrium swelling time, density, porosity, void fraction, gelation kinetics, swelling reversibility studies, total floating time, drug content; in vitro release. All the evaluation parameters were found to be within acceptable limits. The ZnC-SPHC showed sustained release for a period of 8 h thereby achieving therapeutic efficacy and good patient compliance. Optimization of formula was done by selecting 23 full factorial designs. It was employed to study the effect of independent variables of (X1)-amount of BIS, (X2)-amount of Ac-Di-Sol, (X3)-amount of Sodium bicarbonate, which significantly influenced the dependent variables % cumulative release (drug release), swelling ratio and swelling time (min). The optimized ZnC-SPHC were found to be stable when exposed to accelerated stability conditions.

Keywords: Zinc carnosine (ZnC), Superporous hydrogel composite (SPHC), Optimization, RP-HPLC.