Sodium Alginate with PEG/PEO Blends as a Floating Drug Delivery Carrier – In vitro Evaluation

Purpose: Floating drug delivery system reduces the quantity of drug intake and the riskof overloading the organs with excess drug.Methods: In the present study, we prepared the blends of sodium alginate withpolyethylene glycol (PEG) and polyethylene oxide (PEO) as a matrix, sodium hydrogencarbonate as a pore forming agent, methyl cellulose as a binder and barium chloridecontaining 10% acetic acid as a hardening agent. Different ratios of pore forming agent tothe polymer blend was used to prepare the floating beads with different porosity andmorphology. Ciprofloxacin hydrochloride was used as a model drug for the releasekinetics studies.Results: The beads were characterized by optical and FESEM microscopy to study themorphology and pore dimensions. The results obtained shows decrease in beads size withincrease in the concentration of the pore forming agent. The swelling properties of thebeads were found to be in the range of 80% to 125%. The release kinetics of theciprofloxacin from the beads was measured by UV-Visible spectroscopy at max of278nm and the results shows for highly porous beads.Conclusion: By varying the amount of alginate and pore forming agent the releasekinetics is found to get altered. As a result, ciprofloxacin hydrochloride release is foundto be sustained from the blended beads.