ABSTRACT
Chitosan is a polycationic natural polymer which is abundant in nature. Chitosan has gained much attention as natural polymer in the biomedical field. The up to date drug delivery as well as the nanotechnology in controlled release of drugs from chitosan nanofibers are focused in this review. Electrospinning is one of the most established and widely used techniques for preparing nanofibers. This method is versatile and efficient for the production of continuous nanofibers. The chitosan-based nanofibers are emerging materials in the arena of biomaterials. Recent studies revealed that various drugs such as antibiotics, chemotherapeutic agents, proteins and anti-inflammatory analgesic drugs were successfully loaded onto electrospun nanofibers. Chitosan nanofibers have several outstanding properties for different significant pharmaceutical applications such as wound dressing, tissue engineering, enzyme immobilization, and drug delivery systems. This review highlights different issues of chitosan nanofibers in drug delivery applications, starting from the preparation of chitosan nanofibers, followed by giving an idea about the biocompatibility and degradation of chitosan nanofibers, then describing how to load the drug into the nanofibers. Finally, the major applications of chitosan nanofibers in drug delivery systems.
Subject(s)
Analgesics/chemistry , Anti-Bacterial Agents/chemistry , Antineoplastic Agents/chemistry , Chitosan/chemistry , Drug Delivery Systems , Nanofibers/chemistry , Animals , Humans , NanomedicineABSTRACT
The influence of micelle-drug solubilization on the dissolution rate of monodisperse particles of benzocaine has been investigated. A model describing and predicting the initial dissolution rates of spherical particles was derived starting from the boundary layer theory. The dissolution rate of benzocaine spherical particles was determined in water and in solutions of sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) under static conditions. The derived model was applied to the experimental data. The diffusion coefficients and the aqueous diffusion layer values were estimated from the experimental results and the aforementioned model. The diffusion coefficients and the boundary layer thickness values were also obtained experimentally from the rotating disk method and were used to predict the initial dissolution rates. Excellent correlations were obtained between the experimental and the calculated values at low micellar concentrations. However, obvious deviation was observed at high micellar concentrations. The results obtained from this study suggest that it is possible to predict the initial dissolution rates of monodisperse particles in micellar systems.
