Formulation and in vitro Evaluation of Modified Release Oral Hydrogel Driven Drug Delivery Systems of Diethylcarbamazine Citrate

Objective: Hydrogels are three dimensional polymer matrices that are capable of imbibing large quantity of water, and biological fluids and used in the modifying release of the drugs. The present work was aimed to study oral hydrogel driven drug delivery systems of Diethylcarbamazine Citrate as a model drug. Methodology: The Hydrogels were composed of Poly acrylamide, Hydroxyethyl methacrylate using ionotropic gelation method using starch. Results: Thermographs showed no incompatibility between the drug and the polymers. Scanning Electron photomicrographs showed a rough contour surface. Drug release studied by High Pressure Liquid Chromatography using acetonitrile/0•01M phosphate buffer pH 6•8 at 210 nm showed that Formulation 9 released 98.67% of the dose in 16 h as compared to the marketed formulation which released 98.66% up to 6 h. The release followed first order kinetics and non-fickian diffusion by super case-II transport mechanism. Accelerated stability studies performed as per ICH guidelines at 40° ± 2° and 75 ± 5% RH and at ambient conditions of 25° ± 2° and 60 ± 5% RH showed that the hydrogel was stabile. Conclusion: It is concluded that hydrogel can be recommended as modified release dosage forms for industrial applications.