Formulation, Development of Colon Targeted Drug Delivery Systems for the Treatment of Amoebiasis

Abstract

Recently World Health Organization has (WHO) reported that approximately 10% of the world’s populations have been infected with E. histolytica and E. dispar. The parasite Entamoeba histolytica being the main reason for amoebiasis, they have ability to undergo excitation in colon and grow rapidly. The aim of present work was to develop colon targeted drug delivery systems which protects the drug satranidazole through G. I. tract and releases drug in colon. Satranidazole offers efficacious anti-tropozoal effect in colon. For this reason, Colon targeted pellet formulation using natural gum was fabricated. Guar gum, a natural gum was selected as it possesses delayed release properties. The advantage of using Guar gum is that its action has also been reported to be triggered by microbes delivering the drug to the colon. Pellets containing guar gum and satranidazole pose a challenge in formulating drug delivery system using Extrusion in combination with Spheronizer. Various effects of critical processing parameters were studied in preliminary trials and were further optimized using 32 factorial design. All the design batches were subjected to in-vitro dissolution studies. The Percentage drug release was investigated in appropriate Medias mimicking the physiology of G. I. tract during the diseased condition. An in-vitro performance test suggests that the optimized batch shows less than 15% drug release in 5 hours and about 21% in 12 hours. These data can be correlated with ex-vivo studies containing 5% rat caecal media. We observed that Percentage drug release at 5 hours was less than 15% while it increased to about 62% in 12 hours suggesting microbial triggered drug releasing profile. Hence, guar gum pellets formulations containing satranidazole stands effective in the treatment of amoebiasis.