Hydrogel Contact Lense for Extended Delivery of an Anti-Biotic in Combination with Anti-Inflammatory Drug for Ophthalmic Application

Abstract

The main objective of present study was to formulate and evaluate hydrogel contact lenses of sparfloxacin and diclofenac sodium by using HEMA (hydroxyl ethyl methacrylate) and 4- Vinyl pyridine (monomers) for the treatment of ocular infections. Sparfloxacin has in vitro activity against a wide range of gram-negative and gram-positive microorganisms. The incorporation of ionic/hydrophobic monomer would increase the interaction between hydrogel and drugs so that drugs will take long time to diffuse from the hydrogel. The developed formulations were evaluated for water content, center thickness, in–vitro drug release and stability studies. Compatibility study performed by FT-IR method showed no interaction between drug and other excipients. Water content of formulations S1, S2 and S3 were found be 4.2, 3.2 and 4.1% respectively. Centre thickness of the formulations S1, S2 and S3 was found to be 6.6, 6.5 and 6.4µm respectively. Drugs are delivered by soaking the contact lenses in drug solution to load the drugs. In-vitro release study revealed that release rate of drug from hydrogel contact lenses dependent on concentration of 4-polyvinyl pyridine. The antimicrobial studies against p.aureginus were performed for the formulation S2 which showed more drug release compared other formulations. All the results were found that pure drug has more bacterial inhibition activity initially compared to formulation S2. Thus, it can be concluded that formulation S2 containing 0.5% w/v of 4-poly vinyl pyridine as monomer was considered as an optimized formulation, as it provided sustained release of the drug for the treatment of ocular infections.