Ocular Drug Delivery of Levofloxacin Loaded Chitosan Nanoparticle by Emulsion Solvent Diffusion Method
Abstract: Aim: The aim of the present study is an attempt to formulate and evaluate Levofloxacin loaded chitosan nanoparticles for the sustained ocular drug delivery. Methods Levofloxacin loaded chitosan nanoparticle was prepared by emulsion solvent diffusion method using chitosan as polymer. The effect of various processing parameters, such as drug: polymer ratio, and entrapment efficiency, zeta potential, in vitro drug release, kinetic studies and stability studies. Results: FT IR study revealed that there was no interaction between the drug (Levofloxacin) and polymer (chitosan) The highest entrapment efficiency is for F4 92.64% and the highest percent of drug content F4 93.25% Thus the results showed that increase in polymer ratio, increases the entrapment efficiency and percent drug content also increases in the formulations F1 F4. The shape and surface morphology of optimized CS NP formulation was studied by SEM. The microphotographs reveal that the particles are uniform in size and roughly spherical in shape. The zeta potential was measured for the chitosan nanoparticle formulations were found between 20.5 mV, 0.857mV which are suitable formulations were sufficient to keep the particles stable. In vitro release study of Levofloxacin from various formulations was conducted for 24 hrs by using dialysis membrane. All the formulation showed more than 20 in the first 1 hr due to the presence of un entrapped drug and the drug entrapped on the surface of polymer core which released faster showing dose dumping which is suitable to produce the initial effect of drug. Conclusion: The best fit release kinetic was achived with diffusion followed by Higuchi plot.it was found that all formulation follows Higuchi model. The 'n' values for all the formulation were found to be more than 0.5. This indicates that the release approximates Non Fickian diffusion mechanism. this chitosan nanoparticle opens an new prospective sustained release against bacterials for ocular drug delivery.