CONTROLLED DELIVERY OF HIV DRUG BY USING MUCOADHESIVE POLYMER

Abstract

Author(s): Nripendra Singh*, Ritu Singh, Surendra Kumar Singh, Sudhir K.Upadhyay

One of the novel drug delivery systems are mucoadhesive drug delivery system. It utilizes the property of bioadhesion of polymers which becomes adhesive on hydration. This delivery system can be used to target a drug to a particular region of the body for extended period of time. Stavudine a nucleoside analogue of thymidine used in the treatment of HIV. Stavudine has short half-life of 2.3 hours and is taken twice daily in large number of patients which leads to no patient compliance. Thus, the development of mucoadhesive microspheres for controlled release would be advantageous. The objective of this study was to prepare, characterize and evaluate mucoadhesive microspheres of stavudine employing chitosan as coat that is used as natural mucoadhesive polymers. Mucoadhesive microspheres were found to be spherical, discrete, free flowing. Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) revealed no interaction between drug and polymer(s). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) shows microspheres were spherical. The microspheres appear with rough surface and encapsulation efficiency found to be in range of 72.18% to 80.65%. All the microspheres showed good mucoadhesive property and swelling index. The drug release was found to be in range of 94.57% to 87.66% over the period of 12 hours.