ABSTRACT
Natural polymers are used as lead compounds for design of therapeutic drug delivery systems for treatment of different ailments. Chitosan and gelatin have proven wound healing properties individually. As both have wound healing property, the combination of these two polymers and incorporation of drugs into the composite films may show improvement in wound healing property. Thus, the composite films and drug loaded films were evaluated for various in vitro evaluation tests and to ascertain the applicability of prepared combination for wound healing activity. The composite films were prepared with increase in gelatin concentration. The drug loaded films were prepared with increasing concentrations of drug. These films were evaluated for thickness, folding endurance, water absorption capacity, antibacterial activity, tensile strength, in vitro drug release by diffusion studies and in vivo studies by excision wound model. The drug loaded films shown significant difference in folding endurance, water absorption capacity, antibacterial activity when compared to optimized composite film. There was no significant difference in thickness and tensile strength of drug loaded films when compared to blank composite films. Percentage of wound contraction was more for wounds treated with gentamicin loaded chitosan-gelatin composite film than blank composite film. With the above results, gentamicin loaded chitosan-gelatin combination had shown better results when compared to chitosan-gelatin film, chitosan film alone in wound healing activity.