Formulation characterization and in vitro drug release of hydrogel-thickened nanoemulsions for topical delivery of 8-methoxypsoralen

Publication date: 1 November 2018Source: Materials Science and Engineering: C, Volume 92Author(s): Thaís Nogueira Barradas, Juliana Perdiz Senna, Stephani Araujo Cardoso, K. Gyselle de Holanda e Silva, Claudia R. Elias MansurAbstractPsoralens are lipophilic molecules used to treat skin diseases such as vitiligo and psoriasis, among them, 8-Methoxypsoralen (8-MOP) is the most used to topical skin application. Topical treatment with psoralens can be limited due to insufficient drug penetration into the skin layers. Nanoemulsions have attracted much attention due to their as dermal delivery systems for lipophilic drugs such as 8-MOP. However, nanoemulsions feature low viscosity, which might be unsuitable for topical application. In this work, we produced hydrogel-thickened nanoemulsions using chitosan with different molecular weight as thickening polymer to overcome the low viscosity attributed to nanoemulsions. The aim of this study is to characterize oil-in-water (o/w) nanoemulsions and hydrogel-thickened nanoemulsions based on two different essential oils to in vitro controlled release of 8-MOP. In a previous work, we have reported production, stability and in vitro transdermal release of such formulations. Here, 8-MOP loaded nanoemulsions and hydrogel-thickened nanoemulsions were characterized regarding their morphology, rheological behavior, and in vitro drug release kinetics. Hydrogel-based systems presented a gel-like rheological behavior, being classified as weak gels. ...
Source: Materials Science and Engineering: C - Category: Materials Science Source Type: research