Solid state mechanochemical simultaneous activation of the constituents of the Silybum marianum phytocomplex with crosslinked polymers.

Simultaneous improvement of solubilization kinetics of main flavolignans of Silybum marianum extract was obtained cogrinding with two crosslinked polymers: micronized crospovidone, PVP-CL(R) and sodium carboxymethylcellulose, Ac-Di-Sol(R) in the 1:3 active-to-polymer weight ratio. By this process it was assessed that the main extract components lost its crystalline structure, and the powder surface area was increased by 2.1- and 1.7-fold in the coground products with Ac-Di-Sol(R) and PVP-CL(R), respectively. This activated status of the dry extract remained stable over a period of 2 years. Solubilization kinetics resulted ameliorated both in terms of entire dry extract and in terms of single components. When the 1/3 coground systems with PVP-CL(R) and Ac-Di-Sol(R) were dissolved in saturated conditions they gave a concentration improvement compared to the native product of 8 and 31 times of silybin A, 7 and 27 times of silybin B, whereas in the case of silychristin a double concentration was obtained only using Ac-Di-Sol(R). The in vivo studies on rats confirmed that this solubilization improvement corresponded to an effective oral bioavailability enhancement. The highest bioavailability improvement was obtained with Ac-Di-Sol(R), with a relative bioavailability of 88.6, 17.96, and 16.4 compared to the extract for silybin A, silybine B, and silychristine, respectively.

Formulation and evaluation of vinylpyrrolidone/vinylacetate copolymer microspheres with carbamazepine.

Vinylpyrrolidone/vinylacetate copolymer (VP/VAc) was used for the enhancement of dissolution rate of carbamazepine, an antiepileptic drug characterized by very low water solubility. Microspheres containing different drug-to-polymer ratios were prepared using a solvent-evaporation technique and their physical characterizations were carried out by differential scanning calorimetry, x-ray diffractometry, and scanning electron microscopy. Through the solubilization kinetics and dissolution rates studies, the in vitro drug availability of the microspheres was evaluated. These results showed that the dissolution of carbamazepine in gastrointestinal fluids from all of the prepared formulations was increased with respect to the drug itself. However, the best dissolution parameters were obtained from 1:10 w/w system because of the presence of the drug in amorphous form and its efficient encapsulation.

Mathematical Modeling of Drug Release from Microemulsions: Theory in Comparison with Experiments.

The topic of this paper is the study of the drug release from a drug-loaded microemulsion by reverting to a new mathematical model overcoming some drawbacks of previously proposed models. In particular, attention is focused on the mathematical expression of the drug fluxes existing between the oil and water phases during drug release. Indeed, not only the drug release kinetics, but also the drug oil-water partition coefficient strongly depend on these fluxes. Two microemulsion are considered: the first is composed by water, Tween80 as surfactant, and Triacetin as oil phase, while the second is composed by water, Tween80 as surfactant, and a Triacetin-benzylic alcohol mixture (1 : 1) as oil phase. Both of them are loaded by Nimesulide, an oil-soluble drug of considerable industrial relevance. The drug release is performed by resorting to a permeation experiment (Franz cells apparatus) as it demonstrated to be the most reliable methodology. The good agreement between the experimental permeation data and the model best-fitting ensures that the most important phenomena ruling this kind of drug release were properly accounted for by the new proposed model. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

Chitosan microspheres with hydrocortisone and hydrocortisone-hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin inclusion complex.

In the present study, an inclusion complex composed of hydrocortisone acetate (HC) and hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin (HPbetaCD) was prepared by the spray-drying method. HC alone, HC inclusion complex or HC with HPbetaCD as a physical mixture were incorporated into chitosan microspheres by spray-drying. The inclusion complex and microspheres were characterized by X-ray powder diffractometry and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Microspheres were studied with respect to particle size distribution, drug content and in vitro drug release. The results indicate that the HCHPbetaCD inclusion complex is more water soluble than HC alone. The HC release rates from chitosan microspheres were influenced by the drug/polymer ratio in the manner that an increase in the release rate was observed when the drug loading was decreased. However, release data from all samples showed significant improvement of the dissolution rate for HC, with 25-40% of the drug being released in the first hour compared with about 5% for pure HC. The complexation method and microsphere preparation method (spray-drying) is simple with great potential for industrial production.